Throwback Tuesday via Diplomatic Immunity

Madison and McKenzie Archibald, (our two beloved cousins) Alex, Logan and Spencer hanging at the park. Utah 2004

Throw back Tuesday??? Well, when you have a son…nay TWO sons with autism, they give you a card (similar to a diplomatic immunity card) that allows you to say, “I’m doing throw back Tuesday INSTEAD of throwback Thursday" because today was a hard day and Alex may have slammed a few doors at Costco (which is impressive since there aren’t any doors to speak of at Costco) and yelled at the shocked bystanders to “Stop looking at him like he was a circus freak!!!!”  (and even in my shame I wanted to soften the blow by saying, “The proper term in performer!! He’s an artist for heaven sakes! Give him some breathing room! No autographs please. Sir! Control yourself!”)  So, I’m using the card today, using it because I stumbled onto this piece of writing last night (in between circus act rehearsals) and I tripped across the words; I wrote it when Alex was ten and was shocked to realize we were equal parts pre-autism diagnosis and post. Now, we are almost 2/3 post diagnosis to 1/3 pre (and still, somehow, breathing…from a fetal ball of course but the air is moist down here…it’s like being in Florida). We are still circus freaks (except I never get to wear a sweet tutu or fly on the trapeze) but my lion taming act is NOT to be missed!!

Alex is EXCITED for his last day of kindergarten, that smile is even genuine! Yuma, Arizona 2004

 

2009

It's amazing to me how seamlessly your life becomes your life. How one day it will seem absolutely ordinary to have a son with autism, and how because of that one, tiny fissure, your life has shifted, platonic plates realigned and the way you are; the way you do things, is irrevocably changed. For instance, when I go shopping for clothes for Alex, I don't buy striped shirts because he finds them visually over stimulating. That's right, I just pass right by them at the GAP even though they are 60%off, because I know they will just sit in the bottom of his drawer until I try to bribe him to wear one for the Fourth of July and I even think I've got him going along with it (red and white stripes to match his brothers?!! Wahoo!) until he shows up in the van without a shirt on. So, now, almost without sighing, I just walk right past and go to the solid Polo's instead, the ones that are 30% off, but when I feel the texture, I know I need to move on to the soft cotton T-shirts, which aren't on sale at all.

Alex, Logan and Spencer at the Dolphin Habitat in Las Vegas, 2004

 

How seamlessly I seem to go about my day now. How effortlessly I soothe him in the morning. I've learned not to get him riled up in conversation over some important issue, like whether a killer whale's dorsal fin always goes limp in captivity and I'm quick to redirect his brothers when they start discussing a risky topic, like the hours the Grand Canyon is opened, because I know if he's in a bad mood at home, it will follow him all through the day, because who wouldn't be in a bad mood if someone said the Grand Canyon was open from 9:00 to 5:00 and you knew it was 8:00 to 6:00, that is enough to throw anyone into a tizzy! And see, the thing with Alex and autism is the anger, the frustration, the anxiety seems to follow him like a dark shadow and by noon the phone will be ringing, and of course it will be the psychologist from school saying Alex is having a rough time. And I'll entertain the idea again of having a secret code, a sign of some sort to flash to the teacher in the morning so she'll know his mental status, thumbs up is too easy, it has to be more intricate (shoulder shoulder, nose ear?) but how can a quick sign convey the wealth of information you need to help others understand your boy? How can you let them know about every trigger he possesses, every possible land mine with hand gestures? No, that will never work. It's best if I just keep him calm. So I've altered the way I do things in the morning, I give him cereal in the lazy boy chair, (even though I swore I never would) I don't turn on the overhead light when I wake him up, because it's too bright and makes him squint. I lay his clothes next to him, let him ride shotgun, never make him wear a striped shirt or black shoes, or make him put his back pack on before he is standing in front of the school.

 

Alex at Chuck E. Cheese (nice shoes on the table) which is the only "park" where the slides
don't burn you in the hot Arizona heat. Summer 2004

Today, five years into autism, it would never even enter my mind to make him sit on a different stool for dinner. And I always remember to warn him at least twenty minutes before bedtime, only, of course, I say it's ten minutes (no matter how long it actually is)  because that's how old he is, and he knows his number of minutes correlates to the number of years he is. (This was all his idea)  He'll be eleven in March. I know when it's time to sleep he'll wrap his Star Wars blanket around himself like a cocoon, like he is waiting for transformation, waiting to emerge. He'll sleep two nights in a row with his pillowcases turned to the Darth Vader side, then two nights with Yoda. He likes his fan turned on high, even in the winter; he needs the white noise, it helps him forget the colors. And before he goes upstairs to continue his metamorphism, I make him hug me good night, even though it's awkward, and I say, “I love you” and I mean it. Then I say, “Now you say, 'I love you too'” and he does, rushing through the words in one tone.

 And somehow, this everyday living, with things being spun around my son carefully; to avoid ever touching him, has become second nature. I'm careful in my weaving, because confrontation is difficult for Alex, because change in routine is difficult, because fire alarms are difficult, because using a different swing at recess is difficult, because webs are sticky and intricate and spinning seems to become all I know. It's easier, you see, to create distracting designs around the issues, then it is to catch him in the web, to threaten him with punchers, and I think about how patient Charlotte was, and how it took all her strength to work, “Humble” into the design, and save Wilbur's life. You see, in being seamless, you learn to avoid things that might be overwhelming. You make sure, day after day that you give him down time and a moment to process. You make sure you are explaining things clearly, that you are keeping his routine in check. In the end, all these things just become a sum of the whole. A sum of what you have become: Just another part of the equation when you learned it wasn't just ADHD, anxiety or OCD. It was something more, something that took it all in, something like a black hole, something that swallowed the galaxy.

 

Alex and his best buddy Michael, Yuma, Arizona June 2004

Most the time, I almost forget other families aren't like this. I only remember in random moments, like when my friend comes by with her two kid's my boy's age, and they are going to a party, and I realize I've forgot what it was like to go to a party with my son, because for years now he hasn't been invited, and even when he was, I had to hover over him like a moth, with frantic wings flapping so hard the papery edges grew tattered, hover just to make sure he didn't push someone, or yell at the birthday boy, or try to open his presents and blow out the candles before the five year old whose name was on the cake even had time to make a wish. “He's jealous,” I'd tell the birthday boy’s mother, “he's jealous because he wishes he was him.”

 In truth, I don't know how everything became so ordinary, because when all of this started, I thought my life could never be ordinary again. I knew I would be trying to reinvent the wheel every time the sun rose. I thought my family would always be stuck. But time somehow greases the wheels; it moves the gummed up gears, has helped me realize I am wound a little tight,  hyper in my efforts to prevent disaster. My husband likes to say, “Joanie, let the boy be a boy” when we go places like the park or a museum and I am fidgeting, anxious, afraid to stand back and watch. The truth is, I'm afraid if I let go of control a little, I might just lose my grip.

 

Alex hanging with the polar bears at his BELOVED Sea World San Diego. July 2004
 

We've almost known Alex's has autism for as long as we didn't know he had it. We are almost split apart like two halves. Pre-autism and post. And, while it's hazy, I can still remember all those days of wondering what was wrong, of second guessing myself, of thinking the nursery teacher at church just didn't get Alex, of course he wouldn't look at her, he didn't even know her, he was just that smart. And the new teacher at preschool when she'd pulled me aside and said Alex didn't know his shapes, rendered me incensed, I knew he knew every shape, right down to the rhombus. He'd pointed them out one by one without mistake in the Sesame Street book. Who was this lady anyway?

 I thought maybe he was just distracted, like my brothers were. My pediatrician said he had ADHD. I thought we'd figured it out. But then, later, halfway through his first year in school, the kindergarten teacher became cautious when she approached me to talk. She was worried because we were friends, because I volunteered in her classroom, and made gingerbread houses for all eighteen of the kids. She was soothing in her tone; talked to me like I was a frightened animal. “I asked someone to observe Alex. I don't think he has ADHD, I don't know if its autism because he can talk, but I think something is wrong.” I went home and cried. Then took him to another therapist. She thought he had obsessive compulsive disorder and an anxiety disorder. I liked that better than autism. OCD was workable. I spent lots of time reassuring him. I read books and articles. I told my friends at playgroup he was fine, just a little anxious and rigid because he worried and I pushed away the fact that he didn't seem to play with the other kids, just near them, with the excuse that I'd taken child development and knew all about parallel play, and all the kid's did that at this age, right?

 

The boys at the dolphin observation site...Nevada 2004 (looks like a giant TV screen)

When I think of his life like two halves, I think of an orange cut in two, and how different it looks with the juice glistening from the split open cells. How, if left exposed, it grows dry; old before it's time and seems to to curve into itself, the peel trying to grow around the flesh again Then I think about how I like to peel an orange, pull it apart in segments, the pieces protected by the yellow skin so they stay softer longer; broken apart gently, slice by slice. But we, we are two halves, and even though my life before autism is much longer than Alex's, somehow, the halves seem equal, we are both split open, both exposed to the elements, both sucking in air.

But this is how it is. And most days, I guess, you just go about it, and it doesn't seem like such a big deal, it's only when I slow down and talk to him that I remember this was not the life I thought we'd have. Especially when he says something like, “The recess monitor says I can’t play with the balls anymore.” And of course I say, “Why not?”  and he says, “Because I always kick the balls, but nobody kicks them back” and I picture Alex like he's a soccer player kicking ball after ball into the empty field, hoping one will reach the goal.

 

Hangin by the flamingos...wait! is that a (gasp) striped shirt? Alex and Spencer San Diego 2004

Seamlessly means you don't feel the ridges. Seamlessly means everything merges together, like water mixing; one wave merging into another. Seamless means you can't tell where something begins and something’s ends, it just keeps going on forever without peaks to give it texture. And so, I guess, that's how it is, endless. But I confess even while I am trying to convince you that life is just as ordinary as ever, I am not truthful, because in our merging there are still seams; points of connection, unvarnished ridges, something to trip on.

 Yes, I know how it is, we've been doing this for while, so when I stumble a bit, I just think, “Stand up Joanie, try again. It's just like riding a bike. See how easy it is to brush the gravel off your knees? Climb back on, pedal, one foot chasing the other.”  And I guess as time goes on, as the time since diagnoses stretches to tower over the time before diagnosis, things will continue to get even more seamless and maybe with time, I won’t feel the rough edges, the gaps, the drops. Maybe, we will just become. I have hope that I won't wish for the before and despise the after. I have hope that autism will not bully us. I have hope we will live our lives the way we want to live our lives, that we will have a choice.

 


"CHEEEEEESE" "Okay! I said CHEEESE!" "Are you DONE?" "This shirt is itchy!" Alex at the petting zoo, Utah 2004

In truth I know we are making progress towards that goal. Already, at night when it's time for bed, Alex knows after I say I love him, what he has to do next: he wraps his arms around me, squeezes (because that’s the proper way to give a hug) and says without prompting, “I love you too.”

 

What I learned from Yoda

One Sunday afternoon I came out to find Logan had taken Boo for a walk in his Darth Vader mask,
and breathing heavy through the voice changing mask he said, "BOO!!! I am your father...." Jackson 2010
 

Last year, at the start of 2013, Logan said to me, “So I think I finally understand why they call it –you know- (he does parentheses in the air) “News Years Revolution” because you are at war with yourself; you feel this pressure to start the new year off with a bang and all that, you know, eat right, not fight with your brothers, feed the dog every day, but of course all you really want to do is watch Monster Quest on the ipad…so the part of you that is saying, “Do you want your dog to die of starvation? Come on! Step it up brother!” is at war with the part of you that is like, “Didn’t I spill some cereal on the floor this morning, and couldn’t he just eat that? New Year’s revolutions are so conflicting, aren’t they mom?”

Alex as an army dude, Spencer a Jedi knight (I believe Aniken Skywalker) and Loggy bear...his favorite Bat-a-man. 2009

It doesn’t surprise me that war was the metaphor Logan chose to illustrate his angst. It does not surprise me because I live in a world dominated by men (I don’t mean to brag…) and because it is a world dominated by men we currently own 33 nerf guns (Spencer has a collection) 11 light sabers (down from the 42 I’ve purchased) 8 air soft guns (thanks Russ…..) two small machetes, (something for the boys to cut their teeth on; a training machete of sorts, like a sippy cup only instead of a rubber valve, there’s a blade) a samurai sword, and one LARGE machete from Guatemala (thank you Shawn Tidwell).  Additionally, having three sons and four brothers means I have never watched an episode of “My Little Pony,” but can still sing the “Thundercats” theme song verbatim. The only girl show I indulged in, “Anne of Green Gables” my brother’s used to refer to as, “Anne of Green Gay Balls” “Mom!!!! Will you tell Joanie to turn off her stupid “GAY BALLS” because the game is on and the guys wanna watch it!!!” Because I live in a world of boys I have had to replace not one but three ceiling fans (if you are missing the connection here you obviously live in a magical land of talking ponies and fairy dust, a world I sometimes drool over) two light saber incidents, and one Spencer-tying-himself-to-the-ceiling-fan-with-his-belt-so-he-could-fly-like-buzz-lightyear-incident. Yes, I have watched Star Wars in it’s entirety 898 times (often with a young Jedi warrior snuggle up against me…sigh…) therefore I know intimately the scene where Luke is trying to get his X-wing unstuck from the Dagobah swamp as Yoda looks on. Luke tries to use his mad jedi mind skills to raise the stuck vessel, but frustrated at his lack of progress, he gives up. Yoda, ever the wise teacher admonishes him, saying,

“Always with you it cannot be done. Hear you nothing that I say? You must unlearn what you have learned”

“All right I will give it a try” Luke says half heartedly.

“No! Try not! Do or do not, there is no try.”

The Internet is filled with motivational speakers on the subject of “Trying and Doing’ Michael Hyatt says we should:

 

Spencer after playing the entire football game in pounding freezing rain said,
"My fingers are frozen, I can't bend them enough to catch the ball." Jackson 2010

“Eliminate the word try from your vocabulary. It is a worthless word that accomplishes nothing. It only makes you feel better when you fail. Decide either to do or not to do. If you don’t want to do something fine. Don’t do it. But don’t pretend that trying is the same as doing. They are two completely different postures. Commit 100 percent to the outcome you want like the project manager in Apollo 13 said “Failure is not an option” play full out. Go for the win. Don’t settle for merely trying.”

Or another favorite from the play ground of life, “Winners do, while losers try.”

I’ve got to be honest, I struggle with this concept; that the word “try” should be eliminated from our vocabulary. I struggle because unlike my boys with their black and white thinking (or maybe because of my boys and their black and white thinking) I see life tinted in hues of color. I see the world in smoky possibilities, hazy with wafting layers of gray; a 1950’s television sunrise. I don’t see life linearly, measured in absolutes, I see the soft pink of yearning for more, the blue of try again, and the hot lemon yellow of so close. To me life sliced by a mandolin, diced into bite size chunks of achievement or failure, just splits apart the cake before all the ingredients are added, the cake baked, and the frosting spread. If you only took a bite of flour, baking soda and cocoa, you would choke on the pasty concoction and deem it unfit for consumption. Similarly, achievement most be taken horizontally, big picture, as a whole. Michael Hyatt, would say, “You make the basket or you don’t: black or white.” But what did Michael Jordan say? “I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”  

Logan at the Special Olympics, rocking it like a rock star! 5 gold metals! January 2010

Try is a verb. It shows action. Trying to me, is a gap filler, it’s the link that bridges the chasm of space between the desire to do something and the actual fulfillment of that goal.  Now, to be clear, I’m not talking about when you are hit up to sale Amway, and you tell your enthusiastic friend, “I will try to look at the pamphlet” knowing full well you’re going to throw it out in the first trash can you see. Or, saying to yourself between bites, “I will try not to eat the entire chocolate cake,” on day 26 of your cycle,  your nose growing like Pinocchio even while you voice the thought, because you know you aren’t going to try… you fully plan on pressing the last precious crumbs to the bottom of your fork, and licking the frosting off the corners of the pan.

I’m talking about the times when you make sincere and intense effort. When you take Tony Robbins message to heart, when you channel Yoda, when you paint yourself in camo and tatoo “be all you can be” on your soul and fail anyway; the khaki smudges wiped off in wide swaths on the Kleenexes crumpled wet with your tears.



So clean and neat before the game...Spencer...I may swoon! Jackson 2010

Life is filled with unfulfilled dreams, broken promises and disappointments. For me parenting, especially parenting autistic children, is filled with moment after moment of “playing full out” only to look at the score board and realize I haven’t even made it to the first down and that the game was called a long time ago. In a world of quantitative feedback, in a world of A + B = C, parenting a child where I know A + B = X (and can’t remember enough 8^th grade algebra to even come up with a good enough mathematical equation to find X) means I am a LOUSY jedi master. I’m not even a padawon. There is no midi-chlorain in my blood. I can say all that I want that there is no try,  announce, “Ok Alex, we are going to sit through this fire alarm and conquer this fear!” I can put on my game face, wrap my wrists in white tape, heavily grease the undersides of my eyes, I can be ready to play but despite my desire for achievement; the red hot thirst to do, the only thing that will happen is do not. I can say each morning, “You will tie your shoes by yourself today. We are doing this.” But I know his fine motor skills are as rusty as the tin man stuck in a garden of self imposed paralysis when Dorothy first finds him in Oz.

Do or Do not! There is no try.

The first "Golden" metal awarded to Loggy Bear! Jackson 2010

 

To me, the danger with this thinking pattern (and believe me, I know) is that defeat has a way of tripping you up. It has a way of whispering, ‘Why are you putting on your jersey? Don’t you know the odds are 5,000,000 to one against you winning? Don’t you know the other players don’t want you on their team? Not to mention you washed your football pants with a red sock and now they are pink, the color of shame?” Being at war with yourself, as Logan put it, is the predictable fall out when the “Do not” outcome is (ding ding ding!!!) a consistent winner.  It is my New Years revolution to be kinder to myself for the times that despite my best efforts to do, I do not. I have resolved to wave a white flag more often, to surrender to defeat, to recognize there are some things I cannot change; and be okay anyway. I am hoping to make peace with the part of me that yearns to obliterate obstacles, that wants to tackle life and hold it thrashing until it cries uncle, but to accept patience instead, to learn to breath out; to recognize some things are worth waiting for, to understand the spirit endures.

Loggy Bear accepting the gold! He said, "the podium is a little wobbly, and how do you think
they would they feel if their gold medalist athlete broke his foot when he fell?"

 To me, trying when all you want to do is quit is the bravest thing there is. When I watch Alex awkwardly fumble with his laces, loop the rabbit ears with arthritic effort, bend those rigid fingers and try to push the noodles laces through the noose; and fail to execute the task, time and time again. When I watch him instead tuck the strings into the sides of his shoes so he doesn’t have to ask an adult for help; a coping mechanism he developed all on his own to keep him from tripping. When I watch him go out the door to face another day of do not anyway, I want to cheer, I want to pound my feet on the bleachers, I want to stand up and start the wave, I want to feel the vibration of the stadium echo in my soul, and remember how it feels to see someone both accept and ignore defeat; to leave it whimpering in the corner.

To me trying is equated with faith, it’s intertwined with hope, it’s recognizing that excellence must be pursued, must not be given up on. Faith is what propelled Peter out of the boat, to stand on the broken waves, unscathed, while fear, faiths evil twin, is what pushed Peter down, left him sputtering and crying out, “Lord save me.”

Alex waiting in line for the ski lift with his instructor, Jackson 2009

Being at war with yourself, as Logan put it, (indulging in fear, is how I would put it) is the worst thing you can do. I prefer to think battles are won incrementally. The great coach Vince Lombardi said, “Truth is knowing your character is shaped by your everyday choices.” And “Winning is not everything, but making the effort to win is.”  I’ve learned the good you do persists and carries on, is heard in the echos. I know effort is seen, remembered and recovered. Incremental progress is still progress and all setbacks (despite everything and everyone who tells you otherwise) are temporary.

I equate trying with bravery. To me, trying (especially after you’ve experienced a carpet pull, especially after you’ve looked heartache in the eye and loved again anyway) means you are willing to expose your fragile heart, be vulnerable again, risk another carpet pull.

Some time ago, Alex was selected to compete in the Special Olympics. There was some discussion as to if he qualified because his IQ was so high. But then they saw his awkward attempts at balancing and decided to let him compete after all. I remember driving to his first race, the desire to speed because I was late was tempered with the need to be cautious since the roads were covered in a thick sheet of ice. Life felt heavy; the weight of duress clung like sluggish iron in my veins. Winter mornings of scrounging for missing gloves and haphazardly throwing wet boots into the dryer to predictably clunk like a metronome while I urged the boys to eat their cereal faster, had worn me out. Doctor appointments, IEP meetings, redirection, occupational therapy, speech therapy, juggling work schedules, car repairs, the to do list seemed like the never done list and ran at a break neck speed through my brain while I carefully navigated my way to Pinedale.

Alex on the way up the mountain Jackson Hole Ski Resort, February 2009

I had never been to a Special Olympics before, and I confess, a part of me was processing what exactly it felt like to have a child in the Special Olympics. I trudged through the snow, wishing I’d brought better boots, wishing I’d worn my snow pants, wishing I was ever prepared for the elements. The first event I came upon, was for beginning skiers. Parents and volunteers lined up to form a human barricade on either side of the ten yard, leveled run. Slowly, hesitantly, I watched the first skier slide into place. The coach pushed the stop watch, “Go!” He shouted. I couldn’t tell if she even moved. Awkwardly, after a few moments of looking around, she pushed one ski forward, then teetered and fell down, snow caught in the crevice of her neck. Someone helped her stand back up, steadied her, then she pushed the other foot forward, and fell down again. She got up, wiped the snow from her cheek, and pushed the other foot forward, and so it went, an agonizing pattern, her moving one foot, falling down, getting up, moving the other foot… the whole time she worked, fell to her knees, shook the powder from her goggles, tried to regain balance, refocused on the finish line… the stop watch kept ticking, the spectators cheered wildly, until finally, finally! With a smile that split me wide open, she crossed the finish line and I burst into tears. I cried and not the sweet, dab at the sides of your eyes cry, I bawled. I swiped at my face with the back of my sleeves, wiped my nose on my glove, and was still heaving with emotion when Alex gingerly approached from a ski run he’d just finished. “What’s the matter mom?’ He asked, “She didn’t give up.” I said, swiping at my eyes again. “Oh.” Alex responded, “Can you help me take my boots off? The buckles are kind of tricky.”

Alex at the clinic...toboggan ride down the mountain...torn MCL. Try again in 6 months.... 2009

 Yoda, you are our favorite Jedi master. We have more green light sabers than any other color, but…

Try, there is.

Jedi's like sugar cookies...duh! Spencer, Colter Elementary, October 2009

 

The Christmas Spin 2013

Alex making cotton candy @ Uncle Jake's house, March 2013: Life spun just tastes better!

 

As a general rule, I loathe January. The excitement of the holidays has been banished like a ball of wadded wrapping paper. Valentine's Day, paper hearts and chocolate is a little too far off and the hope of spring seems to be frozen in time with no hint of an early thaw. This year it feels like I blinked and December was over, so, here it is, January 8 and I’m just now sitting down to write our Christmas letter (here is the part where I know my sole purpose on earth is to make other people feel less incompetent by comparison to my continual incompetence).

Everyone has heard of selective listening; where you only hear what you want to hear: for example, someone could say to me, “When choosing between the Haagen-Dazs butter pecan milk shake at 1029 calories and 97 fat grams per serving and two scoops of midnight chocolate ice cream at 767 calories and 48 fat grams per serving; midnight chocolate ice cream would be the healthier choice” and all that I would hear was, “Midnight chocolate ice cream is healthy.” And subsequently ditch the broccoli and order a whole gallon just so I could make sure I covered my fiber intake for the day. Christmas letters often included selective memory sharing; you only remember and share the moments in your life that don’t render you catatonic.

Me and my monkeys at the Teton County Fair in Jackson, Wyoming, July 2013 (Shortly before the Zipper caused an unzipping of my resolve not to get sick this year on rides.....)

If this letter was written by the glow of the Christmas tree, I can assure you I would be indulging in selective memory writing….however….this letter is written in the shadows by the empty cardboard boxes that I should have already filled with Christmas decoration; but I was too busy eating midnight chocolate ice cream (and I didn’t want to spill any on the snow globes) to comply. January means real life…but, as a New Year twist, and as an act of full disclosure, I will reveal my magician skills of “spinning” which is where you take a whole chunk of information and twist and turn it until it becomes the information that you want to share. There is real life and spun life; which is life that melts on your tongue wisp by wistful wisp, spun life is as beautiul as fairy wings and as sweet as cotton candy.

2013 In Review

Alex (15) is growing up and making incredible progress in his life. He has started going to early morning seminary (a before school youth meeting for kids in our church). It STARTS at 6 am, and morning is rough for Alex. Right before Christmas break I could hear him lamenting at Russ one morning at 5:30 am, “I don’t understand why God thought it would be such a brilliant plan to drag people out of their beds at the butt crack of dawn to learn about Jesus. Can’t we just learn about Jesus at an hour that humans are actually supposed to be awake and functioning? For someone who is a genius and could create a whole world, it doesn’t really seem like He thought this thing through!!!”

And while we are on the topic of Alex and religion, let’s just say that since we moved to Texas, Alex has balked at embracing his new little flock, thus as a general rule both Russ and I would rather saw off our limbs with a dull spoon than take our son to church on Sunday (although watching him oppose everyone’s callings from the back row, or hissing at people when they sit down in the pew ahead of us, “Too Close!! Too CLOSE!!!’ does have its entertainment value). We do take (and by take I mean drag) him to church, which means most Sundays we spend the majority of our time walking the halls with him like a temperamental toddler while he laments about how these Texan’s are not HIS people (Which always reminds me of Moses, and I often break into a spiritual and sing in a low tenor, “Let my people go…..” which makes Alex MOAN out loud….). Obviously we are well fed spiritually! Stuffed! Renewed! No room for improvement. Sigh contentedly.

The Spin: Alex is going to Seminary! He’s growing up so fast! But sometimes at church I look at him and am reminded of the little boy I used to know all those years ago.

Alex hates the humidity and heat of Texas, but he does love history, so one day last September we took my parents to visit the Alamo. While we were milling about the quarters, Alex was getting more and more overheated and overwhelmed by the press of people all around, I could tell he was on edge as we listened to some cute little veterans talk about the importance of remembering the Alamo and how grateful we should be for those who fought so we could live in such a beautiful place. Alex, baffled at this assumption that Texas (as comparison to the Tetons!!!!!!) was beautiful, snapped, and shouted while wildly gesturing his arms out in front of him, “What about this place is worth remembering?!! I wish they would have forgotten The Alamo, then this “beautiful” (he does quotes in the air) place would belong to Mexico and I wouldn’t have to live in this God-forsaken part of the planet!!” I quickly steered Alex away from the crowd –careful to avoid those Texans breathing heavily through their nostrils with their twitching fingers reaching for the inside pocket of their jean jackets- and steer him towards the exit. “Thank you for your service.” I whispered hastily to the stunned veteran as I dropped a five spot in his bucket on the way out.

The Spin: Alex loves history, he’s working on finding the beauty of Texas, but it’s hard when he misses the Tetons of Wyoming so much.

The Tetons @ sunset, winter 2013 (insert dramatic sigh).

Spencer (13) is the child God gave me as a means of assurance that the struggles my children have are not 100 percent the fault of my flawed parenting. He is the star pupil, on the honor roll and is an over achiever. He loves drama, choir, writing, academic competitions and has a quick wit that makes me want to sigh contentedly. He is the child who starts unloading senior citizen’s grocery carts onto the conveyer belt while we are waiting in the checkout line and chases down haggard mother’s who have dropped their wallets. He is kind and sweet and an insomniac! Yes. The child struggles with sleep (and by struggles I mean he doesn’t). The same qualities that will make him an amazing adult make his life as a 13 year old middle school 7^th grader at times, miserable. He comes to me, sometimes 2, 3 in the morning, and says such things as, “I’m concerned about the quality of Alex’s life!” and “Do you feel like reciprocal connections can be found in 7^th grade?” We huddle together, the two of us, both insomniacs, discuss if the kid in PE who said, “Why don’t you move back to Ireland you @#$%redhead!” is actually a member of the “Kick a Ginger” club Spencer found on the internet, and brainstorm ways to raise enough money to fund no-kill shelters across America. He is divine. And he is exhausted.

Spencer shielding me from the wind; Daytona Beach FL 2013

The Spin: The best part about the day happens at night when Spencer and I try to solve the world’s problems as we cuddle together in bed.     

Logan (11) is comic relief in human form.  This fall, Spencer, Logan and I met my parents in Daytona Beach Florida; we had a blast. While visiting the boys played hard and stayed up late. One night as I was lying in the bed next to Logan, I watched as Logan deep in sleep accidently hit a cup of water on the night stand, knocking it onto his lap. I jumped up the same time he did and as he raced for the bathroom, I hurriedly pulled off the sheets and laid a blanket down for him and threw him another pair of pajama pants. He gratefully slipped on the dry PJ’s and climbed back into bed disaster abated.

The next day I sat directly in front of Logan on a packed-to-the-gills flight departing Daytona Beach, and as the flight attendant finished her safety demonstration, Logan, leaned forward to whisper (and by whisper I mean shout) into my ear, “So, mom, do you remember the puberty video I watched last winter….” He began…. The talking of the other passengers around me started to dissipate, “Especially that part about young boys like me and those special types of dreams they are suppose to have?” Suddenly the plane was deadly silent. “Let’s talk about it later?”  I melodically suggested. “Mom there is nothing to be ashamed of here!” Logan insisted, “This is all a very natural procedure that the male species of eleven to fifteen years of age goes through, or so the video assured me…” “LOGAN!”  I hissed, “lets’ talk about it later…” (I mentally berated myself for not having a snack to stuff in his mouth) “All that I’m saying mom is that last night there seemed to be some moisture that I’m pretty sure was not pee on my underwear. I’m trying to remember what the puberty video said about this phenomenon, something about nocturnal emotions…but I can’t quiet remember….” “Logan,” I interrupted again, “Please! Let’s talk about this when we can do it more privately.” “Mom, mom, mom....” Logan sighs heavily, “This is happening woman, your little boy is growing up…you can hide your head in the sand like an ostrich but it doesn’t change the fact that I am becoming a man. I just can’t figure out what the whole nocturnal thing means…maybe that’s the part where they passed out tootsie rolls during the puberty video and I got distracted unwrapping the candy and missed the explanation…so, this is the information I need from you; what exactly do those types of dreams mean again?” Every man on that plane must have fist bumped Logan at least a dozen times as he made his way up the aisle after landing….

The Spin: Logan is growing up! He’s not my little boy anymore.

Logan living the dream in Florida! 2013

 

As for Russ, he continues to work for the Department of Defense and has worked hard to perfect his house-husband skills during 2013. I have been traveling more than either one of us likes at times, leaving him to hold down the fort. He can now make eggs, ramen AND cold cereal. He is an expert at doing the laundry with only one casualty; apparently the only fitted sheet with deep enough pockets to stay on our king size bed has a tear in it. Russ, ever the vigilant house husband fixed the tear by placing a long strip of duct tape underneath it. I have not been affected by this trajedy since it’s on his side of the bed, (it may have on occasion stuck to his hair). The only thing on Russ’ Christmas list was sheets. Sadly Russ did NOT get new sheets for Christmas, since obviously he was on the naughty list, but, gratefully his birthday is just around the corner. He is a good husband and a good dad; however he is never around when the topic of puberty videos comes up (hence his spot on the naughty list) which is something he needs to work on for 2014.

Russ and Boo bear tucked into bed (shortly before I kicked him out...Boo, not Russ...well...) 2013

 

 

The Spin: I am a tiger in bed :)

(I'm kidding mom! Simmer down!)

As for me, who needs to spin life, when the life you have is utter perfection? Love my family, love my friends and LOVE the nutritional and restorative benefits of midnight chocolate ice cream.

 Happy New Year from the Tidwell’s! Hope your 2014 is filled with all the things that give you joy.

The spin: Send sheets!

The best part of 2013 being over is NO MORE PINEWOOD DERBY CARS TO BUILD!

On Christmas Hope

LOVE LOVE LOVE, these excited-Christmas-morning-waiting-to-see-what-Santa-brought-boys! 2008

We all have our stories; threads of experiences that when woven together make up the cloth of our character. My mother is cut from the finest weave and part of her story (the cashmere part of her character I imagine) is a story I can’t remember not knowing. In fact, it’s a story I grew up loving; one with a sad beginning, one where there is a car accident on a lonely stretch of desert highway during a dark, dark May night.  Two sisters and a brother are hit by a drunk driver, the details include a head on collision, the sound of metal ripping and suitcases being ejected from the back of a white pickup truck to land open halves on the highway; the contents forever lost, ground into the black asphalt, papery ashes.  In this story, one of the sisters dies and one of the sisters breaks both of her legs and crushes her pelvis.  The sister with the broken legs is my mother. It's a story I've heard all my life, I know it beginning to end:

After the long ambulance ride to the hospital, the doctor on call wanted to amputate my mom's legs because they were crushed so badly, mangled by the impact of a car’s motor ramming into them. (I remember my mom telling me how she temporarily regained consciousness at the crash site and thought there was a stick poking out of her leg, so she tried to pull it out, but it was her tibia). When the drunk driver’s car hit my families, it did so at an angle; my Aunt Ann, who was sitting by the window, took the brunt of the force, then my mother, then my Uncle Guy who was driving.  Miraculously, an orthopedic surgeon, (a rarity in rural communities in those days) who had moved to St.George, Utah three days earlier, was able to save my mom's legs. However, the relief in repair was tempered with the stern warning that my mother might not ever walk again and because of the damage to her pelvis and internal organs, would probably never have children.

My mother Ruth Ellis with her delicious and very kissable grandson Aiden Ellis 2013

I used to lean against my mom on the couch while she talked, wondering how it would feel to be in a body cast up to your armpits. Wondering what it was like to be confined to a wheel chair or a bed with the  phone resting on your plaster cast in case somebody wanted to call and talk to you and you couldn't get up to answer the phone. In this story, the sad beginning moves on to a sad middle. The middle part is where my mother tries to learn to live her life without her sister, which isn't easy. And it's also the part where the numbness of shock and disbelief wears off like spent Novocain and my mom starts to feel again. This is the part where she laments over trading spots with her older sister only moments before they came up on a rise in the road and were greeted by the glare of headlights rushing straight at them like a freight train; there was no time to react. They were blinded by the intensity of light. “It was so hot in the car,” my mom had said, pushing a piece of hair behind my ear. “Ann had sat on me, until I moved. We were laughing the whole time.” In the middle part my mother wonders if she'll walk again, she wonders if she'll have children, she wonders why she's still living while her sister died. But then, towards the ending of this story, things start looking up a bit. This is the part I always liked. This is the part that happens at Christmas.

When the weave of my mom’s fabric inexplicably changed from silk to wool in a flash, she was only twenty. She’d just finished two years of college, but was stuck at home that fifth semester while her legs healed. In this ending part, my mother told me how hard it was to be home with her three brothers; everyone trying to act normal and celebrate like they always did. She helped decorate the tree from her wheel chair (and in my ever dramatic mind I imagined her throwing silver icicles on the tree and missing the limb; the icicles coming apart in mid air and falling lifelessly to the ground). She listened to carols on the radio and tried not think if her sister Annie was still alive, she would have been playing the piano and my mom would have been singing. She said she tried not to think about how they would have slept in the attic painted purple together, and raced down the steep stairs two at a time to open presents in the morning. She said, mostly, she just tried to not to think at all.

Logan said he closed his eyes on purpose so he could wish extra hard

! 2008

In this ending part, my mother is still in a wheel chair. And while her legs are healing, and it's been seven months since the accident, she still can't walk. She told me, while I snuggled closer, my knees pulled to my chest, that on Christmas morning she’d sat on the couch in her plaid flannel nightgown, smiling and opening presents with her brothers. (I always asked her what she got, but she never remembered). And then, just when she thought there were no presents left, her dad said, (and this is the part where my mom always smiled) “There is one more gift for Ruthie.” (And this is the part where I smiled because I knew what the present was). There against the wall, behind a sheet, next to the curtains, was a bike, but my mom didn’t know it was a bike until her dad pulled off the sheet, and she saw it, all shiny, with wide white handlebars, and the seat with the springs under it. This is the part where my mom said, “Dad, why did you get me a bike? I can't even walk yet.” And then my grandpa told her while he stroked her hair, just like my mom stroked mine, “But you will, Ruthie. You will.”

“See, Joanie,” my mother would explain, “Grandpa had faith that I would walk again, he had so much hope, that he gave me a bike, before I could even stand.”  And as I leaned against her safe and warm, I would remember how I learned to ride my bike and how it felt to have my dad holding the seat, and running behind me. “Christmas,” my mom would say, “Is all about hope.”

 

Gingerbread house making boys (do you think the sugar is affecting Spencer?) 2008

For me, I need hope like I need air, which is why I love Christmas and the chance it offers to breathe deeply (my boys do look at me weirdly while I gulp asking, “What are you doing mom? You look strange. Are you choking? Close your mouth!”). I confess, when struggling through the middle parts of my life, I have craved the hope synonymous with Christmas even in the middle of July. And in those dark moments when the weave of my spirit seems to be coming apart at the seams the lines from “O Holy Night” have played out in my heart and given me comfort. I know I am a blessed girl, I’ve always known, but even with all my worldly comforts I sometimes think I might know something of how those little shepherds may have felt as they bleary eyed watched over their flock. Like my predecessors, I have longed for, or as the lyrics read, “pining” for “a thrill of hope” and like the rest of the “weary world” I too have been gratefully overwhelmed when night has split apart and “yonder breaks a new and glorious morn…”

For this picture alone (everyone looking AND smiling) my boys made it on the nice list. Jackson 2011

  Hope is such a precious commodity. It should be savored, shared and remembered. I have learned on those nights in mid June when daylight can’t seem to reach me quick enough; when a thread from my soul has become caught in the Velcro of my son’s shoes and I find myself unraveling stitch by stitch, to think of the Christmas bike.  To remember my mother did learn to walk again and that she rode her bike with the desert sun shining on her the whole time she pedaled. She married my dad and had five kids. And in those particularly black moments when I've felt broken and hopeless, I've thought of the Christmas bike and how when I asked my mom how she learned to walk again, she said, “First I had to learn to crawl.”