My Inner Bitsy

When my son was first diagnosed with Autism and a person would say to me “Bug has Autism” it would really upset me - no, it would infuriate me.  You see, at that time it sounded to me as if they were saying he had some sort of disease and for a mother that can be pretty personal.  It wasn’t until I stopped being angry and accepted his diagnosis that I realized just how silly that was - and I have thought it was silly ever since.

But apparently other people don’t think it is silly.  There is a whole debate out there in the Autism community that is just ridiculous - I call it the “Has vs. Is” issue.

My son has Autism.

My son is Autistic.

Which one do you prefer?  Does it even matter?  Frankly, I use the terms interchangeably because yes, Bug does have Autism and yes, Bug is Autistic. 

He has Autism - but Autism doesn’t have him.  Every day we work toward our goals and every day we break free from the grips of a disorder.  Disorder - NOT disease.  He has it, yep.  He is Autistic. 

Are you seeing my point here?  I get the anger at the beginning as you learn to deal with the diagnosis because I have totally been there, but once the anger subsides - ok, so it never goes away, but it does mellow out a bit and once that happens the “Has vs. Is” issue is not really an issue anymore.  There are more important things to concern yourself with.

I don’t care anymore if someone says Bug has Autism because I accept it - yes, he does.

I don’t care if someone says Bug is Autistic - yep, he sure is.

Seriously, as a community of concerned parents who are just trying to understand our children who deal with this don’t we owe it to ourselves and to them to do better than this - stop picking out such trivial things to work yourselves up over and start getting worked up over helping your children.  Who cares about the semantics of it all!?!

If I click on one more blog that is over-widgetized and crashes my browser I am going to SCREAM!!!  Seriously!!!  I have a fairly new computer with plenty of RAM so it is NOT me.  People, let me give you a lesson in tasteful blogging…

1. You do not have to have every widget in the world on your sidebar.
2. If you use WordPress, you do not have to install and activate every plugin known to man.
3. You do not have to have up every flashy button you have ever seen.
4. Bigger does not always mean better.
5. And let’s face it, if your blog sparkles so much that upon entering the site I get a headache there is something wrong!

Can I get an Amen!?!

Oh, and can I just get something off my chest - over at BlogMommas I have new blogs joining the ring every day.  It really ticks me off when they link to my site but don’t put up the ring code - when joining a blog ring the instructions clearly state that you MUST add the ring code to your blog.  If you don’t want to add the ring code then don’t join the flippin’ ring!

Ok, I think I feel better now… I will begin breathing momentarily.

One more thing… Blog ring means BLOG ring!  I get so sick of the people who try to join with those advertising sites - you know the ones that only have ads and have absolutely no blog or website content whatsoever - AHHH!!!!!!

This morning while in my room I was listening in on the kids who were in Bug’s room playing nicely.  Bean decided she wanted something out of the toy box and she tried to reach for it but couldn’t get it…

Bean: Please help me, Bug.  I can’t reach it.

Bug: What do you want?

Bean: Want ball.  Please help me.  I can’t reach it.

Bug: You can do it.  You are strong.

Bean: I can’t do it.

Bug: Yes you can.  You are strong.

Strength really didn’t have anything to do with it - her little arms were too short to reach what she wanted.  Even so, how cute was that encouragement from Bug!?!

First there was this post.  Then there was this one.  And if you have been following along then I am about to give an update on me - but if you don’t like talking about girl stuff then you may want to come back at another time.  And if you are the losers from Hubby’s work who are reading my blog then prepare yourselves for yet another post about my period - the Christmas party should be a blast this year when I tell your wives about your fascination with my website.

So - it’s been a month now that I have been back on the pill.  I started noticing a slight difference by the end of the second week. I felt a little less hostile and a little more normal.  By the end of week three I started to feel like I may even like life again.  And now it is nearing the end of week four and I am having my period - a normal period.  Ok, not totally normal, but compared to the gushers of the past it is normal.  I am not keeling over in pain, I am not a leaky river, I am able to leave the house.  Heck, I could go swimming even!  Yes, I am a happy girl!  I figure that by next month I should be 100% back to normal - and my doctor thinks so too.  I am so flippin’ happy that I will probably never go off this pill again - yep, I will medicate myself for the rest of my life just to stay this happy.  Ok, so menopause will eventually come and then it will be a whole new ball of wax, but that is nothing to worry about right now.  For now I am happy to be normal again!

By the way, for those who may wonder - yes, his coworkers really are reading it and it isn’t all in my head.

They like me! They really like me!!!

Thank you, Amazing Grace, for such a cool bloggy award!  I tell ya, I just meet some of the nicest people around the blogosphere and I am so glad to have met you.

Part of the award fun is in passing it on so here are some blogs I love:

1. Burg at Sweet Insanity (You know I love you - and not in the creepy Ebay underwear way!)
2. Chrissy at Cali Girl Momma (Have you gone into hiding or are they working you too hard?)
3. Molly at I Need a Martini (Hubby and I have declared every Saturday night to be our martini night!)
4. Twinks at Sunflower Faith (I know you are on break, but I still love you!)
5. Jenny at A Jersey Mum (Earth to Jenny, come in Jenny, are you still alive?)
6. Heather at One Teacher’s Journey (I’m so glad you started blogging, I love reading it!)
7. Melly at I am Never Alone (I know you are hard at work, but I also know you read my feed - love ya!)

And there are a few award rules for those who choose to pass it on:

1. The winner can put the logo on his/her blog. 2. Link the person you received your award from. 3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs. 4. Put links of those blogs on yours. 5. Leave a message on the blogs of the people you’ve nominated.

Thank you again, Amazing Grace - I so appreciate this!  ((HUGS))

A while back I wrote about Bug’s picture schedule and today I thought I would share some pictures of it because it really does work wonders for us.

This is the full schedule.  As you can see, I have the time written out as well as a visual with the clock and then next to each time is a picture of the event with words telling what it is.

These next two are close-up shots so you can see what I have done.  The schedule is laminated so that I can write on it with a dry erase marker - that way if I want to change something I just erase the times and the hands on the clocks.  The pictures are held up by Velcro on the back of them - they were made with the Boardmaker program.  Usually most schools have this program and the teachers (at least the ones at Bug’s school) are more than willing to print out pictures for any and all events.

And because I know some of you are probably wondering, yes, we really do have breakfast at 5:30 in the morning - both kids wake up very early and go to bed early as well. Life just seems easier that way with my Hubby having to get up at the crack of dawn for work.

Since having his first successful trip to a public bathroom Little Bug seems to have become obsessed with potties.  Everywhere we go he wants to know if they have a potty and he wants to use it - I figure that before the week is out we just may have used nearly every public toilet in town, LOL!!!