The Mundane One and I over Lunch.

me: you should have seen the boy on the balance beam this morning, he was really going..so fast, he was flying like a bat in the wind

hubby: bat in the wind?
( I always get those “old sayings”/metaphors/assimilies wrong since I grew up with a deaf father, who heard them wrong all his life and passed them onto me, so i knew I said it wrong by his question)

me: ya, you know. like really fast.. I guess that one is wrong too right?

hubby: uh YA.. you’ve been saying that for months now, and I keep trying to ask you what the hell…

me: ya. i dunno. i got that one from my dad I guess…. bat out of hell then right?

hubby: ya I guess that would work

me: whatever, he was going really jam fast!

hubby: jam? what is THAT?

me: giggle.. ya. I dunno, just came out, meant to say damn.. but…

hubby: jam tho?

me: YA… I’m trying to curse less for fuck’s sake ok? so, I said JAM instead of DAMN

hubby: (laughing) so.. ok.. how’s that working for ya so far?

me: really fuckin’ great!

hubby: ( shakes head and laughs at me in the knowing.. you’re hopeless, but I love ya anyway look)

I live on the outskirts of a small town. I used to live in the small town, and for the last 5 years attended mommy play groups with other parents. So, when I go to town, I see some people I “know” on a hello basis.

Tonight when taking the girl to her swim class in town at the rec centre, I knew I had to go and pick up milk at the store my kids call “Big Tig” ( the store has a huge tiger painted on the side)

A few weeks ago we ran into the coordinator of a mommy and me evening program called Busy feet, and we had not gone since we moved from town.

Since the programs on Wednesdays overlap by an hour, she invited us to bring the boy while the girl is at her class, and tonight he mentioned to me that he wanted to go to busy feet.

He mentioned this as we were getting back in the van from dropping off the girl, and I happily agreed that we’d stop by to see after I picked up some milk.

And the very second I agreed to go check it out, and see people we have not seen in a while, I got in the van and flipped down the sun visor and noticed something that made me want to get out of going anywhere in public.

big black chin hairs! OHHHHHH crap! As a 35 year old ADD woman, with changing hormones, I no longer worry about pimples, but I’ve started growing stray dark black chairs out of my chin….this would not be so bad, but I forget to do a good check and pluck them out, and then I notice them at really awkward times, like when I’m in town, without tweezers, and needing to go somewhere in public.

I frantically searched my backpack for a pair of tweezers. I own several pair.. and I had THOUGHT i left a pair in my back pack for just this kind of situation…but a 5 minute search resulted in nothing, and found me bargaining with my 5 year old to find a reason to NOT go to busy feet, where I’d have to talk to people, and be totally aware in my own head of the black chin hairs. I rationalized that I’m sure no one will notice, but that it didn’t matter. I’d notice, and that was enough to make me nervous and anxious. I have social anxiety enough as it is with my communication issues due to hearing processing, and also reading people’s body language, so I didn’t need this kind of extra anxiety.

So, I drove to run an errand for The Mundane One, and got stuck in traffic, then went to big tig for milk, and decided to see if they had some cheap tweezers.

Cleaning the car last week while waiting for a dr appointment I’d found a $1 coin ( called a looney in Canada) and thought perhaps it wold save me.

IT DID. they had a pair of tweezers for a dollar!!!! so I bought them, and plucked them suckers out of my chin in the parking lot, and then went off to the play group with my boy for the last 40 minutes of it. And in all of that, I almost forgot to buy the milk!

(me in total “no makeup, hair in  ponytail, not brushed today, stained sweater going to town mode”)

Being a sexy SuperADDmom is no simple task!

And I’m gonna yell at the Mundane One for letting me out the door like that!

I’m keeping the tweezers I bought today in the van from now on, for just this kind of situation!

Uggg. I can’t find the arm pit spray! Because I have to attend the gym and swim program with the boy, I put my personal hygeine products in a travel bag to take back and forth with me, and now I’ve lost my underarm deoderant! I have b ack ups, but I didn’t want to smell like Vanilla today, I wanted to smell like Cucumbers.

Make sure you buy double,”travel” items, and leave your home stuff home.

also, when you are trying to establish a new “home” for things so you never lose them…maybe write down on a card for the fridge where you made the new home cause last night I searched for my day planner for an hour.

I finally remembered I had put in in my nap sack in one of my “i’m gonna get all organized moments”, and promptly forgot it was there. Where I intended it to always be, but have not put it there in over a year.

IT took me over 3 years to establish a “hang your keys up right away when you walk in the door” routine.. and some days I still don’t because i have to run in fast to pee…and on top of that, the kids like to steal my keys to open the workshop, or turn on the radio in the van when they are waiting for me.

The boy insisted on pulling the heavy 20 kg bag of sand to the box hmself.. he did a great job! heavy sensory therapy work DIY style.

He’s been in the sand box ever since. The sand has always been one of his most favourite things to do. I can currently hear him humming to himself under the cherry tree playing with cars in the sand.

Eleven formulations of over-the-counter children’s cold and allergy medicine are being recalled in Canada as part of a larger worldwide recall for failing to meet quality standards.

McNeil Consumer Healthcare said Saturday that all lots of Children’s Motrin and Infant’s Motrin liquid suspension products and Children’s Tylenol Cough & Runny Nose liquid suspension products are being recalled.

No other Canadian product is affected, the company said in a release.

The company said the recall was issued, in consultation with Health Canada, because “these products may not fully meet the required manufacturing specifications.”

The company said the recalled products do not pose a safety risk to children who have consumed them.

In the United States, more than 40 over-the-counter kids medications under the brand names Tylenol, Tylenol Plus, Motrin, Zyrtec and Benadryl are being recalled by the company, a subsidiary of pharmaceutical and health care giant Johnson & Johnson.

The affected products in Canada are:

• Infant’s Motrin Suspension Drops Dye-Free, 30 ml (DIN 02238626)

• Infant’s Motrin Suspension Drops Dye-Free, 15 ml (DIN 02238626)

• Children’s Motrin Suspension Dye-Free, 120 ml (DIN 02242365)

• Children’s Motrin Suspension, 120 ml (DIN 02242365)

• Children’s Motrin Suspension Grape, 120 ml (DIN 02242365)

• Children’s Motrin Suspension Grape, 30 ml (DIN 02242365)

• Children’s Motrin Suspension Bubblegum, 120 ml (DIN 02242365)

• Children’s Motrin Suspension Tropical Punch, 120 ml (DIN 02242365)

• Infant’s Motrin Suspension for Fever due to Colds/Flu, 30 ml (DIN 02238626)

• Children’s Motrin Suspension for Fever due to Colds/Flu, 120 ml (DIN 02242365)

• Children’s Tylenol Cough & Runny Nose Suspension, 100 ml (DIN 02292122)

Company spokeswoman Tina Peyregatt says no illnesses have been reported so far, and stresses no other infant’s or children’s Tylenol products are affected, nor are any medicines in tablet form.

“We want to make sure Canadians aren’t concerned or panicking” about products that aren’t on the recall list, she said, adding she doesn’t expect the list to grow.

Asked whether children who may have consumed the product are in any danger, Peyregatt said no.

“There’s no safety concern,” she said. “This is a precautionary measure.”

The issue is that some products may not meet manufacturing specifications, she said, noting the recall is voluntary.

While some items in the U.S. recall reportedly contain higher concentrations of an active ingredient than specified, Peyregatt said that is not the case in Canada.

Customers are nonetheless urged to stop using the recalled products and contact the company at 1-888-222-6036 or visit www.jnjcanada.com for more information.

“The company is conducting a comprehensive quality assessment across its manufacturing operations and has identified corrective actions that will be implemented before new manufacturing is initiated at the U.S. plant where the recalled products were made,” the company said.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

A while back we started a tea ritual. Before bed, The kids have a light snack ( or lunch as eastcoasters in Canada call it) and a cup of relaxing herbal tea.

So to make it more formal, and special, we took the kids to Value Village and let them pick out their own special tea cup and saucer.

My boy picked a staffordshire, green, stoneware English tea cup.

we paid $2.50  for it. there were others there as well, but we didn’t want the whole set. in hind sight, maybe we should have bought a back up.(or two)

Well, he’s had the cup for well over 6 months I guess, and he just LOVES his tea cup.

He was delighted when he recognized his tea cu on the dresser of Anne’s bedroom, as set decoration, in a scene of Anne Of green Gables a few months ago when we watched it.

Well, he’s not suppoed to leave the table with his cup, he tends to be a bit clumsy on bad days when he’s over tired from a lot of physical exercise.

Yesterday was one of those days, and he left the table with his cup in hand to finish the last drop before bed.

He was watching daddy do something on the Wii and a sound drew his attention….

and Crash….he dropped his cup. it slipped out of his hand by accident because his coordination was off from a busy evening of running and playing and riding his bike.

He fell to the floor in a pile of tears and I had to sit on the floor and scoop him up and rock him and console him, and calm him down, because he was so sad.

He begged me to “poxy” it back together, but I told him he could never drink from it again… after some cuddles and more bouts of tears, he resolved on his own that he would keep it forever as a decoration. Daddy suggested planting a small flower in the cup or cactus plant perhaps…we have not decided.

But now I am searching for and EXACT copy of this cup, because he says he’ll never forget his cup, and he NEEDS  his cup back, adn he learnt his lesson and will NEVER leave the table again!

He is so in love with his cup that he told me that if we cannot get this EXACT cup. the only thing that will be acceptable, it to get a white cup, and draw the SAME design back on the new cup.

Tomorrow we’re probably gonna g tea cup hunting….ohh the things we do for our kids

ohhhh my… i just witnessed in myself a near meltdown from sensory overload.

This naming it to claim it stuff is draining.

Now that we’ve made the correlation of the Aspergers traits I have, I’ve been working on becoming more aware of when i’m having what I call “An Aspie Moment”

Sensory overload is a thing.. too much noise, to much light, to many colors. I am a very visual person, I see things very vivid and i notice EVERYTHING…unless I’m really hyper focused on something, I see and take in everything around me.

In the last few weeks, it has been interesting basically evaluating myself to see what is bothersome, when do things get too overwhelming, and how I deal with them, so I can deal with them better.

Being tired. Being in pain…they make it harder for me to filter, and process everything I take in. It then makes my ADHD traits worse, and I’m essentially a bumblling idiot who can’t remember what you call that thing you put things in to stay cold in the kitchen.

When I get that way, I get flustered, anxious. I have a hard time finding words to speak and I go inward. I get clumsy and trip over my own feet. I make mistakes, I get scatterbrained more. My depth perception is off, i break glasses, burn dinner, etc..the list goes on and on.

I recognize that in the past…I’ve dealt with these things, and have been avoiding actual panic attacks, or temper tantrums I guess by becoming actually moody, bitchy, cranky, sometimes even reach a boiling over point to near, if not total rage.

When I’m moody, bitchy, cranky, no one wants to be around me, and it was I guess a backward, sub conscious thing that allowed me some alone time. It gave me the time I needed to recuperate and stop the panic inside, calm down, and find a way to regroup and move on, and handle the sensory overload better.

So, with this awareness, i’ve been trying not to be cranky and be a bitch when I notice these overwhelming feelings coning on, and I’ve been trying to find a way to cope better that is healthier for the relationships with the other people in my life.

Diverting the kids to go somewhere else away from me, using my ear phones, but still being physically present etc.

But today was too much…..I’ve been this overloaded before…many times… but by now I’d always have been bitchy, cranky at people’s needs, yelled at the kids for the smallest things like how they are chewing their cookie near me ( the sound is SOOO ANNOYING and LOUD i can hardly stand it). I’d been cranky with hubby, and then this would cause strife for a while. There would be bad feelings between everyone, and then I’d need to recoup, AND get over the bad feelings, and apologize for my behaviour.

Today I fought the urge to be bitchy…It is very hard to fight the tendancy to revert to a coping stragedy I’ve used for 35 years. I managed to not flip out, but it was replaced by the urge to physically run away…I’ usually run away to the computer, and that in an of itself causes issues, because I retreat to the computer as a way to shut out the stuff that is overloading me, and then I get less done, and hubby gets mad at me for “being addicted” to the computer.

I’ve been trying not to run to the computer for a mental escape as much lately, and have been using a timer to force myself to do things that need to be done, for a certain period of time, before I go take a break.

So I didn’t run to the computer….but I got a feeling of being out of control and stuck in a situation I could not get out of, and I started to have a panic attack. Of course I put myself in the situation with my limits I’m trying to pose on myself in small ways.

But I could not run away from what I was doing to retreat to the computer, or even run away outside, because I was cooking food for people, baking cookies, and listening to hubby talk about stuff he wanted to tell me.

I had a loud self talk in my head saying. “pay attention, pay attention, listen….don’t panic, just finish the cookies and then you can leave. hang on ok!? Don’t get mad at everyone.”

At some point, I had three people trying to tell me something all at once over each other, and I could feel the need to get mad and yell “go away from me now, you’re driving me nuts!” I answered in a snappy tone and had to take a breathe and appologize right away to not let the responses to my snapping, roll over into the same old song and dance we always end up doing when I get to feeling this way.

I don’t know how I got through finishing the things I was doing in the kitchen, but the second I was done, I HAD to go away.

I had a tight chest, heavy breathing, and a headache behind my eyes coming on from the stress, because I wasn’t reverting to just coping by getting mad.

I’m upstairs now, in the office where I usually gazelle. it’s quiet, it’s good.I txt messaged hubby to tell him where i was and why.

I started writing this to try and get it out as it is pouring out of my brain, and I’m trying to relax.

I’m still buzzing in my brain and my body feels like how it feels when you drink too much caffine in a short amount of time…jittery and jumpy. But as that slowly starts to die off, and the adrenaline from my little Aspie moment is spent, I can feel how spent of energy I am…

My brain is fried right now, and I feel like I just need to sleep for a little while. I feel guilty about that, and I’m not sure anyone here would let me sleep for a little while to get some equilibrium back.

I hate this feeling.. these are the times, when I would get mad and bitchy at everyone and say “maybe I just need to live alone on a mountain in a yurt with no one around me, cause I can’t take this crap anymore”

sigh…..

A blog of a woman with aspergers has been really insightful in allowing me to go, hey…there’s a name for that!?

It’s a good thing to be making the connections… but also…. it processing, and dealing with stuff, and THAT is tiring to.

I never made the connections before but this is why I have what I call “recoup days” after we’ve had a day out shopping, or driving far to the city etc.

I’m discovering the reasons behind elements of who I am, I never really gave a second thought to.

if you’re interested in reading it…

http://www.aspieteacher.com/2009/07/be-an-aspie/

thanks for letting me spill that