Randoms on a Tuesday

I was taking a walk the other day, pulling Noah in his wagon, and got whistled at... several times... and heard the words, "one hot mom". By a TEN year old.

It's one thing to get stuff like that from adult men (have some class, dudes). But to get it from a kid? Took the creepy factor to a whole 'nother level. I mean, I'm cool with being a hot mom. But seriously, teach your boys to keep those comments to themselves. It's just weird and made me really uncomfortable.

However, these same kids think that Brad is the coolest dad they've ever met. They continually ask him to come play basketball and tell him about their lizards. That part is really cute.

***

My hair has lightened a little more over the course of the last week or so. I'm borderline blonde now. A trip to the salon (to a color expert) will be happening as soon as my roots start to show. Until then, I'm seriously considering getting some of that brow tint stuff.

I mean, I don't hate it. But I like my dark hair. I'm too quiet and reserved to be a blonde. lol

***

Brad and I will be leaving Noah for the first time ever in a few weeks. And it's making my stomach turn. I know he'll be fine. He'll be with my parents, and they're going to be staying at our house at night, just so he can stay in his own routine.

We're both in a wedding Labor Day weekend, Brad being the best man, so there's no way out of it either. We've decided to approach it as a "quick romantic getaway" to Raleigh. Time just to ourselves is long overdue, but it still doesn't stop me from worrying about how Noah will do.

***

Our back yard is infested with these tiny little bugs called thrips. I've lived in this area my whole life, and I've never even heard of these things before. They're these tiny (like microscopic), orangey-red bugs that usually just hang out around gardens and flowers. Except, we don't have a garden this year (other than a couple of herbs). So they're hanging out in our grass.

They don't really do anything, they're just super annoying. They jump on people and bite, not because they eat people, but to see if we're actually something edible. Oh, and insect repellant doesn't work on them. I have no idea what caused them to choose our back yard. The only thing I can come up with is that, apparently, they like the color blue. And Noah's kiddie pool is blue... hence why we get bit every time I take him out there to play.

Unfortunately, they're really hard to get rid of. So we have several plans of attack, but it has me wishing Fall would get here quick this year.

***

I decided that, this year, we're not going to have a "friend" party for Noah's birthday. After talking it over, Brad and I came to the conclusion that we could take the money we'd normally spend on a party and put it towards taking Noah to do something he doesn't normally get to do. Other kids know who Noah is, but he just doesn't have friends the same way other kids do. And while he does well at parties, it's still a little stressful trying to get him to open his gifts, blow out candles, play with the other kids, etc. I'd rather just let him go out and have fun.

We're still going to have several family parties, so he will definitely be celebrated. And instead of a party, we decided we're going to take him to a local aquatic center where they have a big toddler/kid waterpark type thing. He's so into swimming now, that I think he would love it.

***

Noah has made it very clear that he wants a bike. He watches in amazement as other kids in the neighborhood ride their bikes and is constantly playing clips on his iPad where the characters (usually Arthur) are riding bikes. We let him try one out at the store recently, and he didn't want to leave it. He doesn't quite get the concept of pedaling and steering, but he wants to really badly. He's obsessed with the pedals (which is my one reservation about buying a balance bike instead). I don't think it would take him very long to get it (he's almost there) once he's able to actually practice consistently. Yesterday, he had a massive meltdown, because we wouldn't let him try to ride Brad's old adult sized bike that's in the garage.

I love that every year, we always know what to get him for his birthday, even though he doesn't technically "tell" us.

a light at the end of this very long dark tunnel we've been in...

If you've been following me for any length of time, you know sleep has always been a huge struggle for us (mostly Noah). It began when he was about 2, and it's been a battle ever since. He wants to be nocturnal, and any time I attempt to change up his sleep schedule? It totally backfires. I've been at the end of my rope. Just so desperate to have a normal routine and function with the rest of the world.

Brad is very spontaneous. His whole family is. His nieces and nephews would be up all hours of the night and still go to school the next day. So a schedule is kind of a foreign concept for him. He just rolls with whatever.
I, on the other hand, thrive on routine. I like knowing what to expect. I stay on top of things when I'm on a routine... the house is cleaner, dinners are made on time, and stuff just gets done.

This huge difference in our personalities has been the source for lots of compromising. I've learned to chill out and enjoy veering from a schedule. He's had to learn that if you say you're going to be somewhere, you've made that commitment. You have to be there.

So Noah? Yeah, he's our little curveball. Kids with autism like routine, yet his day has zero routine.

At Noah's yearly evaluation with the owner of the therapy company he goes to, she asked me what I'd like to see improve with him. Sleep was my first answer.
I've told my mom so many times, that if someone could just tell me WHAT to do, I'd do it. But at this point, I felt very helpless. I was totally out of ideas... weighted blankets, shut his door at night, use a noise machine (he's had one since birth), give him melatonin, let him take a nap, don't let him take a nap... basically, I'd done it all and felt like there was no hope. This was our life from now on.

Until this week.

I sat down with his speech therapist and OT on Tuesday. They brought up the issue of sleep. They felt it was definitely time to tackle it. We can't live our lives separate from the rest of the world forever, and they've seen what happens when you don't deal with it early on. They gave me a plan, a schedule to follow, and some ideas on what to do when he throws it all off.

Since Tuesday, we've been up by 10am every day (which, don't laugh, is early for us). Last night, he was out at 10pm (usually, this means he'll just use it as a nap and wake up at midnight) and slept all the way to 8:15am this morning.

Y'all have no idea how excited I am about this. It means that school (one day) may be a possibility for him. It means that we can go back to church, he can go on morning play dates, have breakfast in the morning instead of at noon, and that there's an actual flow to our day.

Since he's gone to bed early this week, I now get some down time at night too. Brad and I already watched two movies this week. Is this how most other people live? Because I'm a fan. :)

the stuff summers are made of

Blogland is quiet right now, and I'm pretty sure it's because we're all busy enjoying life. It happens every year. I'm so behind on reading/commenting at the moment, so bear with me.

Life can get crazy. And right now, I'm learning to slow down and enjoy life with my family. We're rearranging priorities and just becoming very intentional about spending as much time as we can together. I have to admit, I'm loving every minute of it.

Playing at our favorite playground:

 



While we were there, Brad decided to go for a quick run. Noah ended up running with him for a 1/2 mile! Don't tell me my kid isn't active enough! haha

The sign of a good dad... running with a sippy cup in hand. :)

 

 

 

Swimming:

 

Sunday, I got a text from my sister letting me know that their neighbors were going to be out of town, and we were free to use their pool if we wanted. Noah LOVES swimming, but we don't really have access to any pools. Memberships are just too expensive, and apparently, we don't have any cool friends. haha So we jumped all over that offer.

 

I took Noah early Monday, and we spent the whole day swimming. He had a blast. And he's so brave! All he wanted to do was jump off the steps, and he wanted to go under! Scared me silly, but whatever. He was safe, and it's good that he's not too afraid.

 

 

I attempted to give him easy, beginner swim lessons (I could swim everyday if it were an option; I love it too)... blowing bubbles in the water, kicking, etc. But all he wanted to do was jump. lol.



 

 

To say he had fun would be an understatement. My parents are already in the planning stages of building their own pool, and I think after seeing Noah play so hard, they're even more convinced they need one. :)

 

 

Happy Wednesday!!

 

 

 

the worst salon experience ever

So I know I said I'd be back last week. But frankly, I was having a bad few days. And while, yes, sometimes it helps to blog about it... it's also good to just keep quiet sometimes instead of whining on the internet. Especially if others are going through an even worse time.

I mentioned how I hit a jaguar.

A couple days later, my hair was dyed orange.

My cousin has been doing hair for 10+ years and recently moved to a salon about 15 minutes from me. The fabulous Jess was going to be doing our family photos at the end of the week, and I wanted to get a few highlights and some layers put in. Nothing crazy or super difficult.

I went in Monday, showed her a couple of (realistic) photos of what I was thinking, and she went to it. We had a good time catching up, giggling about husbands and kids, discussing Noah's issues, schools, etc. She did my highlights, took off the towel, and HOLY CRAP ON A CRACKER MY HAIR WAS NEON YELLOW. I mean, just the highlights were. But there were a LOT of them. They weren't just blonde. They were blonde blonde.

Thankfully, because she is my cousin, I didn't mind speaking up. It also helped that I was thinking of our photo shoot and how I didn't want to be a blonde for our forever pictures.

Here's the thing. I have black eyebrows. Too much blonde, and I just look stupid. So she suggested we use some toner to take the highlights down a notch to more of a honey color. She explained how it won't affect my natural color, just take the blonde down. So we stressed, talked some more, washed my hair, took the towel off... and MY HAIR WAS ORANGE. Picture dyeing Carrot Top's hair a lighte shade of reddish blonde. That was my hair color.

Apparently, she doesn't work with virgin hair much. My brown color? Yeah, totally natural. Other than highlights, I've never actually dyed my hair. So the toner took my natural color up to an orangey-blonde color.

I wanted to cry. She thanked me for not crying, kept her cool, and tried to figure out where to go from there. She told me there's no way I was leaving her salon looking the way I did. So she took a dark brown dye to try and get me back to my normal brown color.

FOUR hours later, and I had light brown hair with some blonde highlights and orange untertones. lol.

To say this wasn't what I had in mind is an understatement.

I keep getting compliments on it though. Our buddy Chase came to stay with us again the next day, and the first thing he said to Brad (in a thrilled tone) was, "Dude! You got her to go blonde!" Punk.

It's not terrible, but it's not my favorite either. It's just different. I'm all for doing something new and fun, but I like it to be when I'm expecting it.

The only shot of it I have at the moment was with instagram, so it's not a great example. But you get the idea. It's not bad, just a lot lighter than I'm used to.

I guess every girl is supposed to have at least one salon nightmare experience, so I've officially had mine...

some realizations

I hit a Jaguar the other day. It was just a little fender bender, so we're all okay. I've only been in two minor accidents, and the other was back in college with a BMW. What made the whole scenario even better was that the guy kept telling me how much his car costs. Apparently, I just have great taste. Go big or go home.

via



***

Parents have to deal with onslaughts of opinions all of the time. Usually from random friends that aren't in their daily lives or, even better, complete strangers. So take all those opinions about your typical kid that you've heard over the years and multiply it by like 5000. That's life as a parent with a special needs kid. Especially with autism, which can be kind of vague considering how wide the spectrum is. People don't get that each kid with autism is different. I get messages and comments all the time recommending such-and-such because it "cured" so-and-so of his particular form of autism. Those are the days when it's tempting to delete my Facebook account. :)

***

I've decided I like being a "small" photographer. I have zero desire to be insanely popular or highly sought after. Kind of like with blogging. I like my own space. I like not having the crazy amounts of stress and pressure that come along with high-maintenance clients. I'm blessed in that I don't have to work in order for us to survive. And because of that, I can focus the majority of my energy on Noah. My time with my family is precious to me, and if I feel like a job isn't going to be worth it? I won't take it. I like having that freedom. I don't ever want the joy that photography brings me to be overshadowed by the stress that usually comes with the business side. I want to continue to learn and grow, but have it be on my terms. I want to continue to document my own kid's life in beautiful pictures instead of only documenting others.
And like with above, there are a lot of voices that I've had to learn to ignore in the industry. I've had to take a break and think about what I want out of this. What works for me. And right now, for this stage in my life? I want to keep it small.

Don't get me wrong though. Small doesn't equal inferior. I want to be good. Really good. But "good" and "popular" don't always have to coincide. I don't measure my success by the way the rest of the world looks at it. I don't need to book 50 weddings a year or travel the country in order to consider myself a good photographer. If that's how others are measuring the success of their business, that's totally cool. Nothing wrong with that. That's just not my prerogative. My biggest success is sitting next to me watching Bob the Builder.

***

I'm ready for a new week.
One where I don't get in any car accidents, accidentally screw up, get PMS-y, be given guilt trips about my kid, and slack off on working out. And maybe one with a couple of sunny days?

Happier posts coming soon.
Just needed to let my heart breathe a little.

Brad's birthday/neighborhood cookout/family party... basically, people came over, gave Brad a hug, and ate.

(This was supposed to publish on Wednesday... not sure what happened?)

***

Brad isn't really one for parties. He enjoys them, sure. But to throw himself a party? Eh. He'd rather order a pizza and just hang out with Noah and me. However, since this was one of those milestone birthdays, I decided we ought to do something. Being that it was the week of July 4th, we decided to have a little family/neighborhood cookout. Brad was in charge of who he wanted to invite, so it was mostly my family (since his had been there the night before), some of the neighbors, a couple of his coworkers, and a few friends. Our neighbor owns a BBQ catering business and offered to cook the meat for us. It was amazing (if you're local and in need of somebody, check out madaboutque.com). Brad and my dad went in together and did a seafood boil. It was ridiculously good.

Thankfully the rain held off (finally), and we were able to just relax, eat, play, and have a good time.

 

In case you weren't aware, the proper way to do a seafood boil is to just throw it out on a paper covered table and let people fill up their plates there. Traditionally, I think you're supposed to use newspaper, but the thought of eating ink grossed me out. So I went with paper bags instead.

My mom is a super OCD-clean-freak. I was waiting for her to have a panic attack, but she did really well. :)

The whole thing ended up being a huge hit. Brad went back to work with his coworkers begging him to throw another one soon.

After it was over, he thanked me for forcing him to do something fun for his birthday. He's such a special guy and totally deserved to have a night to just relax and have a good time with family and friends.

4th Fun (recap)

(I know some people hate recap posts, so sorry to those peeps.  But I gotta get this down before I forget...)

Those of you who aren't located in NC may not know this, but we've been dealing with some really weird weather for the past couple of weeks. Like, I may or may not be typing this from some sort of watercraft. Really though, it's been ridiculous.

(this is with no filter, in the middle of the afternoon...)

Random little pop-up thunderstorms aren't weird for NC in the summer... however, two weeks straight of storms, downpours, gloomy Seattle-like rain, and monsoons? Not normal. Our back yard, which is usually in full sun... is now like a swamp. It's gross. I'm over it.

The plus side is that it's kept the temps down. Normally, we'd be rockin' 100+ temps right now. So far the highest we've gotten has been around 95 I think? So I probably shouldn't whine too much.

Anyway, the point of all this is that all of these torrential downpours kind of put a damper on our typical firework extravaganza. Last year, I think we saw like 4 or 5 firework shows. This year, only one real one.

But we still managed to have a great week.

Brad turned 30 on Monday. We just grilled out some steaks, since the rest of the week was going to be so busy. Our buddy Chase came down the next day, and he's actually still here.

(Noah helping uncle Chase work...)

 

Every July 3rd, mine and Brad's old neighborhood throws a big block party. Everyone brings canopies, chairs, and a dish to share. We all camp out at the end of the street (in front of my old house) and catch up. A couple of the moms that knew me as a kid were so funny. They asked my mom if she'd had some work done, because she still looks so young (she hasn't). Then they proceeded to go on and on about how "gorgeous" I am. I told them I was going to come back home more often. One of them explained how she hasn't had any work done either yet, but she does do "the yoga" (said in a strong country accent). I'm still laughing about it. Noah wasn't feeling well, and all that chaos and people was too much for him to handle. He had a total meltdown about 10 minutes into our visit, so we cut it short. He calmed down once we headed to the car, so we decided to head towards the SC border and get some fireworks (the fun kind are technically illegal in NC, but the cops tend to ignore them on the 4th). Brad picked out his arsenal, and we figured if all of our firework shows got rained out, we'd make our own.

The actual 4th of July, Brad's parents, sister, and niece (with her boyfriend) came over for burgers and to celebrate Brad's birthday. Our original plan was to go downtown for fireworks, but right around the time we needed to head down there, we got hit by another storm. My SIL brought some home movies with her, so we all cuddled around the tv and watched movies from around the time Brad and I started dating. It was so surreal to see my nieces and nephews so tiny again.

After the rain quit, we met up with one of our neighbors and combined arsenals for our own firework shows. Remember how I said most cops look the other way around here during the week? One even drove by us and didn't even pause. lol. Taxpayer money at its finest.

Saturday night, we decided to take our chances and head down to a neighborhood that sets off some amazing fireworks after the 4th. We picked up my little sister and went around the corner with hopes that the little clouds over us wouldn't get angry and turn into something bigger. They shoot them off from the golf course, and obviously, the kids LOVE being free to run around like crazy people before they start.

Thankfully, it held off just long enough for us to watch a pro show. We watched about 5-10 minutes of it before Noah sweetly asked, "Inside?" That was our cue that he'd had enough. At least we beat the traffic. My sister was awesome and watched Noah afterwards, so the three of us went to see a movie.

Despite having to change my shoes 53453984753 times and constantly stepping in mud puddles, the week was pretty awesome. More to come. :)