B-man Quick Hits

For your reading pleasure I present a few recent conversations with B-man

After I've spent a while making a 2nd type of green cookies for Grinch day (the first type were an epic fail), B comes into the kitchen to check them out.
B: but there's no green icing on them. Could we just put some green icing on them?
Me: No, I've done all I can do. Go to your room


Me: hand me those cookies so I can throw them away, they've been on the ground.
B:vegetables come out of the ground and we eat those.
Me: yes, but we wash those first
B: you can't wash cookies
Me: exactly, we're speaking the same language. I'll throw them away.
B: never mind, I'll eat them.


Me: I've put the $2 for Milk & Cookies with Santa in your bag for tomorrow
B: I'm good


B: this chapstick you put in my advent calendar is rather, I don't know, mundane
Me: well, actually it's not. If you look at it, you'll see that it's a special Christmas edition peppermint chapstick.  So, it's not mundane, it's extraordinary.


I'd heard his music playing that morning at 4:45 am, went to check on him, told him it was early and to go back to sleep, he'd answered "I am"
Me: hey buddy, I'm so proud of you for going back to sleep this morning when you woke up too early.
B: yea, I thought "If they see this, they are going to be mad"
Me: if we see what?
B: the percent on my iPad
Me: you woke up, played on your iPad then needed to charge it back up?
B: oh yea
Me: what time did you wake up?
B: 1 o'clock
Me: so you were awake from 1 am until I came in at 4:45 am
B: yea but then I went back to sleep!

You're welcome!

Bad Case

Alright y'all, I'm going to be honest with you.  I have a bad case of don't want to.  I mean I don't want to do anything that involves leaving the house.  I just want to hang at the house, lay on the couch, eat junk and hang out with my boys. 

Can you relate?

I really need to get my nails done. They are grown out and super long.  They are actually making typing a pain. I usually a super fast typist but these nails are causing problems - at least 1 error every other word.  But getting my nails done requires at least an hour outside of the house and having a conversation. 

Saturday morning I got up early-ish and was getting tons of stuff done around the house.  Then I left to get my outside the house errands done.  Mercy! It was so people-y out there.  Hobby Lobby sucked my life force out of me.  All told, my errands took 3 hours.  I was so ready for nap when I got home. 

Do you feel me?

Sunday was great.  I worked at both campuses at church, took a tiny nap then had Christmas at Ryan's family.  It was so relaxed and nice that I didn't mind being out of the house ;) I love watching everyone be silly and open presents and tell stories. 

So maybe it's not the leaving the house part that's bugging me. I just don't have enough time with my people. I'm running around like crazy getting ready for Christmas and making sure they feel loved and I really just want to hang out with them.  I'm so thankful that we just have a few more action packed days before we can hang out together.  What a blessing!

Words

Have you ever really thought about words?  Lots of us have learned the Greek and Latin roots to our English words.  But where did those roots come from?  How did they get their meanings? I mean you can go down a huge rabbit hole researching words and where they came from and their meanings. 

But lately, I'm understanding more and more that our relationships give our words meaning. 

Think about it...what hurts more: a stranger saying you're ugly or your best friend calling you ugly? Your best friend saying that would hurt more, right? It would for me. 

My mind is like a tape recorder, too.  It stores all the ugly things.  I can access all the mean things people have said to me.  For some reason, it's not so great about remembering the good things.  (There is an actual biological reason for this but I wouldn't bore you with it).

Every year we have a special education meeting for B.  Every three years they do a full re-evaluation of him.  We had this meeting yesterday.  It is not an easy meeting.  There are some good things about these meetings - we talk about his strengths and remind ourselves how much he's grown.  Because of the testing we do have to spend a lot of time going over his areas of struggle.  Not just talk about it but see the words projected on the screen.  Then you get a copy of all these words. 

Different people talk about him - his teachers, his behavior specialist, his principal, the professionals who test him.  We have different relationships with each of these people.  Their words effect us in different ways because of these relationships.  Some we interact with everyday and their words hurt a bit more.  Some we just deal with sporadically so their words don't sting quite as much. 

Some of those words just stick with me.  They play over and over in my head.  They hurt my heart, even though they weren't intended to.  I have to fight against them.  I have to game plan how to make them shut up, how to override them with the good things the same people say. 

It's so hard. It takes a while.  It's exhausting.  So, I just color or read or think of something else. But the words leave a hole in my heart, a hole that sometimes doesn't get filled.  And it hurts.

Family Pictures

There is nothing I love more than pictures.  I love to be surrounded with pictures of my friends and families.  However, pictures are not so easy for B-man.  I posted an old picture of B yesterday so show how far we've come with his eye contact.  The eye contact has been challenging during photo sessions.  But, also, B struggles with his body.  He doesn't know where his body is in space.  This causes him to be a bit clumsy so he's not always sure where the photographer needs him to be.  His general silliness can get in the way. Finally, he does not have the stamina for a long drawn out photo session.  

And yet...I want good family pictures.  First thing first, I changed my definition of a good family photo.  I want pictures that show our personalities, not just how well we can pose.  Second, I've taught the older boys to smile and hold still while the photographer works with B.  You have to be at the ready when he is ready.  Finally, and the biggest thing, is to get a photographer who knows B, loves him and gets him.  For our last several photo sessions, we've used our friend Hannah.  She does a great job with B. 

Here are some of my favorites from our most recent photos...

dancing machine

the good one

the not great one - Hannah captioned this one: when you realize you're not the favorite

Us

B meditating