The Good Bit, Though the Bad is still Creeping In...

I know, I know - missed a day, and also didn't post Throbbing Thursday for the second week in a row! But the BAD is really still BAAAAAAAAAAD. Car still dead, which means I drive Big Boy the hour to work, come back to pick up kids, drag them back down to pick up BB... Well, you get the drift.

But, enough on that, today's post is the high point of the last three posts:

The Good:

• Boy 1 made it through the week back at school without major meltdowns. Ooh- and survived PE with the teacher who makes his life, ah, not pleasant.
• My car went in for a service and they lent me a nearly NEW Lexus IS250. Black, lush, handles like a dream. Up I drove to pick up kids from school, flying up the winding mountain roads as she cornered like a dream (yes, I am the frustrated rev head in the family). And you should have seen some of the looks I received at the school . Bwahahahahahahahahaha!
• My gorgeous friend and I have bitten the bullet and signed up for a master class one Saturday a month with the Queensland Writers Centre. It is the Express Year of the Novel Class with a renowned writer. Have juggled kids and committments and finally done something for ME. And I get to enjoy it with a great friend. Woohoo. I think. Okay, a bit daunted and scared, but doing little happy dance. Alright, am tapping one foot. Not sure if that is in fear or excitement but it is rhythmic, sorta. Okay, a little *woopee* escaping my lips now.
• I am smelly. How is this good, you ask? I am fake tan smelly (Boy 1 hates it - "You don't smell like YOU, Mum...") and getting browner by the minute. We are off to a Bollywood party tomorrow night, first time invited to the social event of the season. I have Bolly-outfit, black wig, gold and more gold jewellry and a party mood all ready to roll. Woot-Woot. May even post photos if I am game. After this week we are really needing a good night out, so great timing.
• Wise Woman is really well. That damn leg ulcer has healed beautifully in a little over a month. She truly is living up to the miracle woman title.
• I have been blogging each day (see Brenda, I can do it). Even yesterday when I didn't post here I did post on another blog site I write for. So ner.

• And the latest on The Ugly... apparently Sunrise is doing a special segment this weekend and will apologise. Still no mention of the social mouth menstrator offering her explanation, but hell, didn't expect it. But it may be turned into a positive in the education and advocating stakes for these oh, so, special kids. Reserving judgement until seen.

Phew. Done. Now for that lightly chilled glass of white...

Blog This Challenge 39: Ode To The Pure of Heart

After a break from entering I am enticed back into the

Blog This Challenge Arena

 by Challenge 39: The Good Deed.

It goes like this:

So friends, tell us about a good deed you have done for someone or vice-versa. Or how someone elses' good deed that you have learned about has affected you.. did you learn from it? How did it make you feel? Was it a disaster? Did it uplift you?

Now, I could bore you senseless big-noting myself, revealing my actions but to be honest, even though I am a take charge sorta gal it is not why I do it and I'd rather remain a little discreet.

Please stop laughing.

Seriously... STOP LAUGHING!

I can be discreet thank you very much.

Instead I am going to tell you of my own personal good deed merchant. Oi, you in the back there... no yawning, and I can do without the commentary. Waddya mean, "here she goes again?"

Whilst God has sent my oldest son some pretty big bloody hurdles to overcome in his genetic makeup, he also decided to throw in some complimentary awesomeness to go with the awetismness. In fact, I have a walking, talking look for the best - how can I help little ray of positiveness at times. I suppose I better now back up these incredible claims with some evidence, even if purely anecdotal. After all, you have all been deluged with the dramas, the struggles and the dark side of Asperger Syndrome so it may be a little hard to believe this declaration of good deeddomness.

Example one:

• We are mean parents (according to the powers that be: Boy 1 and Boy 2), our children have to earn their pocket money. Boy 1, aged seven, had managed to work his way into the princely sum of five bucks. Now our little school only manages to hold tuckshop on one day a week. Boy 1 was insistent he HAD to take his whole five dollars to school with us this day. Not on tuckshop day... So I asked him the big question. "WHY? "  His answer (whilst looking at me as if I was an idiot... I should know, surely?): "Because I might meet a poor person on the way and they would need it more than I do!" Jeez Mum, get with the programme!

Example two:

• Boy 1's wallet was stolen at a shopping centre. He put it down whilst looking at one of the centre aisle stalls of books, it had twelve dollars he had saved over three months. In his purity and lack of the understanding of human nature we spent many hours, days, weeks explaining to the little seven year old that NO. They would not bring it back because it was not theirs. No. They would not realise their mistake and hand it in. It was gone. A harsh lesson to the pure of heart. After many tears he comes to me one morning (and yes, every morning it was his topic of conversation during this period of learning about the brutality of reality). Instead of the ritual of would they bring it back today he surprises me by being calm and resolved. "Mummy. I think they didn't have any food for their kids and so they needed it to buy some. And they didn't have a spiderman wallet either. So it is okay now."

I know this is turning into another of my mammoth essays, so I will limit my little deity's words of wisdom and good deed delivery to just two more examples...

Example three:

• Starts with a betrayal. A friend turns and months of hell result. Years of therapy are undone. My child disintegrates before my eyes. Heartbreaking. Finally, with the help of some amazing professionals we begin the climb back. I am not ready to forgive and forget, because I feel betrayed also. But once again, my son leads by example, and shows me how much he has grown through the experience. He begins to allow the betrayer back in. His aide questions the sensibility of this. I can only put it in his words: "Mrs **. Even bullies get lonely. And how is a bully to learn what is right and wrong if they do not have a friend beside them to show them how?"

Example four:

• He is being teased at school. I, being the mature adult I am, suggest a taunting comeback. I get the look. And am firmly put in my place by an eleven year old. "If I do that MU-UM, it makes me like him. I am not like him and I will not call him names. He will grow out of it if I ignore him."

Yep, he is my own walking, talking good deedonator.

This is my entry for Challenge 39. This is my son.

December 4: Book #best09

What book - fiction or non - touched you? Where were you when you read it? Have you bought and given away multiple copies?

The Best of 2009 Blog Challenge

 

I have come to the recent realisation that my life still revolves around my oldest son and the impact of his Asperger Syndrome. The Gwen Bell challenge has brought this fact bubbling to the surface. I guess as we do not have the three trips a week to various specialists or therapists, our lives have felt relatively normal. Then you start blogging about questions for your 2009 favourite preferences and whack! Up from the depths pop all these submerged bits and pieces of emotional debris. Not all bad, just a little lightbulb moment to remind you.

Thus, my choice of book should come as no surprise to you all. Again, my subconscious has directed me to a compatible selection. Meandering through QBD booksellers I stumbled onto this one...

Description of book
Ever since he was small, John Robison had longed to connect with other people, but by the time he was a teenager, his odd habits—an inclination to blurt out non sequiturs, avoid eye contact, dismantle radios, and dig five-foot holes (and stick his younger brother in them)—had earned him the label “social deviant.” No guidance came from his mother, who conversed with light fixtures, or his father, who spent evenings pickling himself in sherry. It was no wonder he gravitated to machines, which could, at least, be counted on.

After fleeing his parents and dropping out of high school, his savant-like ability to visualize electronic circuits landed him a gig with KISS, for whom he created their legendary fire-breathing guitars. Later, he drifted into a “real” job, as an engineer for a major toy company. But the higher Robison rose in the company, the more he had to pretend to be “normal” and do what he simply couldn’t: communicate. It wasn’t worth the paycheck.


It was not until he was forty that an insightful therapist told him he had the form of autism called Asperger’s syndrome. That understanding transformed the way Robison saw himself—and the world.
Look Me in the Eye is the moving, darkly funny story of growing up with Asperger’s at a time when the diagnosis simply didn’t exist. A born storyteller, Robison takes you inside the head of a boy whom teachers and other adults regarded as “defective,” who could not avail himself of KISS’s endless supply of groupies, and who still has a peculiar aversion to using people’s given names (he calls his wife “Unit Two”). He also provides a fascinating reverse angle on the younger brother he left at the mercy of their nutty parents—the boy who would later change his name to Augusten Burroughs and write the bestselling memoir Running with Scissors.
Ultimately, this is the story of Robison’s journey from his world into ours, and his new life as a husband, father, and successful small business owner—repairing his beloved high-end automobiles. It’s a strange, sly, indelible account—sometimes alien, yet always deeply human.

Product Details

ISBN: 9780307395986

Format: Hardback

Imprint: Crown

Published:15/10/07

Subject: Autobiography/Biography

I must admit after John Elder Robison's younger brother wrote "Running with Scissors" I wondered how I would find this book. For me it was uplifting, humorous, and gave me hope. Am going to let Boy 1 read it over the holidays (he reads and comprehends at a 17 year old level). See what he gets from it.

Have I bought multiple copies and shared it? Let's see. Gave one to Boy 1's teacher, aide, principal, and my last copy... Go check Sharalyn's bookshelf. It left with her after our catch up a few weeks back.

Oh, and conversing with electrical fixtures? Well, I may have had a light bulb moment but that's as close as it gets...