The other night, I had just gotten PA out of the shower & I was in her room looking for clothes. While I was going through her drawers I found a surprise in the bottom corner of her drawer

A mystery was solved from a few nights previous.

The missing cookies

It all started few days before I found the “surprise” was on Sunday. It was PA’s sister’s 18th birthday (yes, I feel old).  On Monday one of her friends brought a bag full of cookies to school for her. She shared a bunch with her friends and brought the rest home. After dinner she offered two cookies to PA, and she promptly ate them. As the evening went on the bag of cookies was left on the counter unattended. We did not think twice about it.

The next morning we got up and when my older daughter went to put the cookies in her lunch they were gone. We could not figure out where the cookies went. When we went to bed there were 5 cookies in the bag. I know we did not eat them, and as far as we knew PA had only had the two cookies. My older daughter went to bed before us, so I know she didn’t eat them.

Now back to the drawer. That is where I found pieces of many cookies sitting in the bottom corner of her drawer.

This is not the first time we have had this problem with her stashing food. She has done it with soy sausage, cheese, pretzels you name it. However it has been about a year since she had done it.

I did go back in her room the next day after she went to school and found what I feared.

Found an old ham & cheese sandwich from Subway.

Also in her closet:
I found pretzels in the big teapot that holds her tea set.Now I am thinking I need to go through her room again. We have been lucky to this point, she has not gone back and eaten anything that has made her sick. I need to figure out why she does this.I have read a few places on line and most say it is because kids were deprived of food. This is totally not the case. I am having a hard time finding anything more on this subject. She is not overly OCD either. I am really kind of baffled on this one.If anyone has any ideas or experience or insight feel free to share.  Thank you.

So I went to see what she was up to because there was a lot of noise in the kitchen and this usually is not a good thing. Sure enough she had the lettuce and cheese out. She asked me for a plate, so I got one for her. Then I went to grab my camera, because this is always something to document.

The following is in her words (as far as the explanation under the photos).

“First put lettuce on plate”

“Then cheese on it”

“Have to put in bowl cause it messy”

“Stir it up”

“Now eat it mom. I make for you”

Of course she made it for me, after all it is green and she would never eat anything on purpose that was green. Not only because of the color but because of the texture. I have to give her credit. She did do a really good job. She also did a good job telling me what she was doing. I guess sort of a lesson in being able to explain something in steps. Something that is rather difficult for a child with ASD (autism spectrum disorder ).

Seriously, there were only three things I could do.

1. Laugh.
2. Take this phone picture.
3. Run away while she struggled to pull the shirt on.

What would you have done?

This is what I see when I can focus my eyes in the morning.

Then I go check to see what PA has put on her “doll” the Buda.

Before I even wake PA up I need my one vice my Diet Coke.

Mornings are never good for PA so I skipped the getting ready part & went directly for “Ready For School”

On our way out to wait for the bus we walk through the garden to see if there is anything we need to pick.

This starts my time. I usually have lots to do and almost NO time to do it. I am a frazzled mom. I start lots of projects and almost never complete them. I also do try to do housework during this time. Some days I even get to go out and do errands.

Then PA gets home & it is snack time. She has a very narrow range of foods she will eat and this is about it.

We do crafts. Play dough is her favorite. We also do painting and coloring.

We also work on self-help skills. PA is just now getting to where she will put on socks and shoes. She thought her dads black dress socks would go with her Sunday shoes. Backwards no less. I had to take a picture because it was number 1 an accomplishment for her and number 2 is was so darn cute!

This is what we call “going shopping”. This is how PA will get her food. We have had to make it fun for her and interesting. I picked up this shopping cart last year when we were having issues getting her to eat and it has done the trick. We still have many days a week where she will not eat, but she is doing better.

It’s play time till bed.

Story time before bed.

Then while she gets her story we also do her medicine. We also do this in the morning too. Also includes her nebulizer treatments morning and night as well.

Before bed we also set our clothes out and get her backpack “packpack” as she calls it.

PA Sleeps for a few hours then she is up again. She gets up 2-3 times a night to have her drink, because she won’t eat the right or enough food in one day.

This makes for long days for me. I don’t sleep well and have not since she was born.

She brought me the brownie mix box her dad & sister bought a few days prior. I was curious as to how she knew what she needed to make them. I told her to point to the part on the box where it told her how to make them

She pointed to the pictures & said, “See mama two eggs, water & lemon juice”. First thought was WOW she is good! I thought it was funny that she thought the oil was lemon juice, but she read the pictures. To me this was huge. She has never done anything like that. Look at something & figure out where or what are the instructions without ever being shown.

Then again, this same kid can reprogram my cell phone & bypass the security settings on her dad’s iPad. She is a smart kid. She just cannot articulate herself to make us understand what she wants or how she is feeling. As frustrating as it is for us in understanding her, I have to remember how it must be for her trying to communicate with us.

This really is not a big deal & should not have been very noteworthy however, it did. See the dinner plate (a Corelle shatter resistant plate) did not just break it SHATTERED into a bazillion pieces all over my floor.

I was on the far side of the kitchen when this happened and had to wait for my daughter to bring me shoes. I also had to try to keep PA from coming into the kitchen. Simply telling her to stay out or that it would hurt her feet if she came into the kitchen was not enough. She does not understand. We had an incident recently where we went through a similar situation (yes she dropped another plate) where I had to keep physically keep PA out of the kitchen until it was cleaned up. She is so curious and has to watch everything and with some things no fear and that scares me. We talked to her at length about glass on the ground & she even had gotten a piece of glass in her foot last time. We talked about how dangerous it was to walk on glass with bare feet. Was as if she had NO CLUE what I was trying to tell her and she did not understand. She did not remember and was upset she could not go into the kitchen.

I had to have my 16yr old take care of PA and watch her to be sure she did not go into where I was working, while I tackled the cleanup. As I looked around to assess what needed to be done, I soon realized this was not your normal clean up. I saw shards on countertops, in the sink, on the stove and in drawers.

I was amazed at how far & wide the shards flew. There were even shards in the cupcake batter. She was making cupcakes for a swim party later in the afternoon. Lucky for her she had already baked ½ of it so she had 1 dozen to take and we dumped the rest.
I swept twice, vacuumed the counters, stove and edges of the room. Then I took a broom vacuum to the room in every direction I could. I have to say short of scrubbing the whole kitchen I was thorough. It took me the better part of the afternoon to do this.
No permanent damage done & no one got hurt. We just had a little excitement for my otherwise dull life. Yes, I know not such a dull life but I had to say it **laughing**

A trip to Ikea is always fun especially when there is furniture that needs to be put together. PA is very aware when there is something new in her world. Any kind of box she thinks is hers to do whatever she pleases. In addition, every piece of new furniture she needs to explore and she has to try to climb inside. This trip we brought home new inexpensive nightstands & hanging lamps for hubby & my bedroom. I was very excited about this because we have been making due with makeshift furniture (and I use that term loosely) for most of our married life.  Any new or used furniture is very exciting for me. Usually means we get to discard or donate a piece of make shift furniture.

Hubby went straight to work putting them together knowing PA would be all over it. He did a great job at letting her help put them together. He would hand her pieces to give back to him. Of course, it took him twice as long this way, but he was having a good time letting her “help”.  After he got them together, I told him we needed to put them in the bedroom right away or she would try to climb in them. I got mine on my side of the bed and realized hubby got side tracked. Figured PA was not messing with the nightstand so I just let it sit.

A couple hours later, I came back into the room to hear a crack. The first thing that came to mind of course was that she had broken the nightstand trying to get into it. Well lucky thing she did not break it but she did pop the shelf out. At that point, I told my hubby he needed to get it into the bedroom before she really broke it.  Poor kid just can not help herself. He then went to work getting his into the bedroom. The next day he hung the lamps. I have to say it looks nice. I would post a picture but I want to wait until he finishes the painting our room. Right now, we have all but one wall painted. It would not look so bad if it was just brown, but with the white paint splotches. It just dosn’t look right.. So I took pictures of her helping instead.

After the rain & hail stopped, I took PA outside to get her out of the house for a while.  She wanted to play with the umbrella.

It all started this morning when I was trying to get PA to eat something before the school bus came.  I went through the normal things cereal, white cheese rollup and mashed potatoes (because of the SPD, she will not eat normal breakfast food). I ended up just giving her a Pedia Sure drink because she was not cooperating.  When I went to give the drink to her, she told me she wanted to make an Apple Jacks cake. We did not have time right then and I had no idea how we would do it, being she wanted to use the cereal to do it. I told her maybe after school.  I thought she would forget, but I should know my daughter better than that.

She came home, I was in the kitchen making dinner & the first thing out of her mouth was “We make Apple Jack cake now?”  She did not say Hi mom… She wanted to know if we could make the cake right then.  After I finished making dinner & she had her bath we made her cake.

This was an experiment because I could not find a recipe using Apple Jacks (the breakfast cereal), but after tasting them, they were good and PA is happy so it does not matter. Now she wants to take them to school to share with her friends.

Here are the pictures: This one before they went into the oven. No I did not let her put them in..

What they looked like after they came out…

I could not believe it she ate them! She usually will only lick iceing off & put the soggy cupcake in my hand to get rid of for her.

I don’t think I’ve written a blog devoted to the cuteness that I have surrounding me twenty four hours a day. My little boy makes every moment, even the crappy times, worth living. I know primarily I devote my blog to life as a writer, a musician and a hair model—but having a toddler changed every aspect of my life. I write stories for and about him. I can’t help but pick up the guitar and write toddler songs when I need to distract him from trouble. Even though he can’t be on stage when I’m hair modeling, he’s still the star of the show. Everyone at the salon knows my little boy and his sweet disposition.

In essence, my life has dramatically changed for the better. When my professional life isn’t progressing as I want it to, I have him to keep me on the right path. He helps me to take a closer look at all the little things in life, which is great inspiration for writing.

Since his birth, I’ve been forced to adapt my style and personality to raise him. I’ve changed. Here’s a list of what I’ve learned so far from being a toddler mom.

As a toddler mom, I can’t be ____________.

a perfectionist (This one is difficult…and still needs work.)

on time for everything

expected to take care of everyone (Need to focus on the kid…and me.)

one-sided

As a toddler mom, I have to be ___________.

in ten places at one time

strict but fun

able to forgive

flexible

frugal

able to love no matter what (This one is easy for me.)

understanding

tough

Not necessarily tough on my son, but tough on the world. If I let others take advantage of me then what kind of example am I setting for him? I need to stand up for myself and my family. This one is a very difficult personality change but it will be worth it! If he learns anything from what I teach him, I hope he respects people but doesn’t let anyone take advantage of him.

Hey, it’s me.

I don’t know why

I bother talking to You, God,

Since You’ll just laugh

At everything

           I say.

My prayers don’t

Really matter;

You’re not really list’ning, God.

And I don’t think You’ll

                             Answer anyway.

I’m just a

Silly kid who

Always tells You stupid things,

And all this ‘prayer stuff’

Seems like a

                                               Weird game.

Cold water

Doesn’t come out

Of the rocks inside my world,

And if they did

I wouldn’t be

                To blame.

If I only

Believed that

You just wanted me to pray,

And that You

Couldn’t wait

                             To hear from me…

If my prayers

Really mattered,

There’s a ton that I would say.

And there’s no

Telling what my

                         World would see.