I really do understand...or more than you know

I took the opportunity that Mother Nature gave Rem-dog and I and we spent the entire morning at the park after dropping Bella off at school.
This is Penguin Park in KC. I used to go to this park when I was a little girl and would beg upon endless hours to go as often as possible. They have a giant penguin which used to be a big slide and is now closed up and has a little slide off to the side and a giant kangaroo that also has a giant slide inside of it, but always smelled like pee. Hmmm, wonder why?

I like to take Monday and Thursday's and have a little one-on-one time with Remington. This is something he has never had before and it is such a blast for the both of us. Of course, I feel guilty, because it is so much fun and non-stressful. Oh wait, I think the word I am looking for is "Normal". Good thing Bella was my first or the ease of Remi would've had me a true baby-making machine. Arooga!

Anyway, since my "normal" kid is running around and acting like a normal kid, I am able to people watch. People watching is one of my favorite things to do, but unfortunately we are usually the ones being watched.
This morning there were a few handicapped children at the park. Actually both of them had down syndrome and seemed to be around Remi's age. One little girl was super cute, but reminded me of Bells, licking everything before or after she touched it, even the ground numerous times. The Mother, of course was beside herself. Yelling and screaming at her to stop, that it was icky.
The other little boy was so excited to be at the park, that his excitement was contagious. Except his Mother kept apologizing for his excitability.

I have been in both places. The mouthing thing is gross, but I have learned after almost five years that it won't kill'em. It might actually work opposite and make their immune systems like Superman, at least Bella's is.
The second Mom overly apologizing. I get that, there have been times after an outing that I wonder to myself If I could've said, 'I was sorry' any more than I did. And really what was I sorry for? Sorry that my kid stuck out like a sore thumb or didn't play like the other kids? Yeah, I guess pretty much. I have learned from this too. Unless Bella is harming another child, I don't apologize for her behavior. Hey, everyone is different in their own ways, even the "normal" kids. Like the one that refused to wear shoes and the grandma threw up her hands or the little boy with blue tiger stripes in his hair. Weird! ha And yes, Remi now wants tiger stripes in his hair, but you guessed it, they have to be YELLOW.

Stop being so stupid...it's my turn

Crazy weekend. That being, I was a tad crazy this weekend. If you were within 2 feet of me, we probably got into a fight. I can't blame PMS, although isn't that handy when you can? I just think I slipped off the rocker for a few days and now I'm good again.
Part of my problem is the holding it all in until I explode! Yep, anyone familiar with that one?
My life is super stressful right now and instead of finding a way to work with it or around the stresses, I just keep taking them in and letting them build up on one another. Remember that game Tetris? I hated that game,even the music got to me, because anytime the screen became over half full, I would freak out and make more and more mistakes until eventually I would lose the game. This is kind of how I deal with my life.

On a positive note, I ran a total of 16 miles last week (5 days) and strength trained 3 days for roughly 30 minutes...

I insert this information at this point, because I have figured out this is my saving grace, exercise. It clears out my head, makes the weight on my shoulders feel less heavy, reorganizes the crappy pieces to make them fit together again.

I do have a problem though, on the days I didn't run (ex:this weekend) I was a mess. What do I do with this pent-up energy when I can't run?

VOC with children

So a few of us Mom's from school have given ourselves this special name,like a sorority of sorts. We are God blessed with our special angel children (read sarcasm), so we are allowed to do such things. And today was our first outing with our children included.
We went to Weston's Red Barn Farm. It was gorgeous and the animals smelled ripe and ready for petting. So we did just that, along with four other bus loads of children from various schools. Yikes. I thought I would be cleaver and dress Bella, Remi and myself all in red(it also is red friday)so we would be easy to spot, but one of the four groups had also choose red today for their color, along with groups of blue, orange and yellow. Oh how Remi wanted to be with the yellow group.

I was a little hesitant for this trip anyway due to Bella and outings, but I figured we would all be dealing with the same kind of issues. Ha I was quickly proven wrong. Bella didn't want to be at the farm the first second we got there. Rolling on the ground, kicking and screaming and often found sitting alone in the dirt somewhere. The hayride was the only calming factor for Bella that seemed to regroup her senses. This hayride took place at the end of the excursion, minus all but one of the other families. How was I to know that the others hadn't purchased hayride tickets? The lady at the gate told me my group had purchased these tickets. Really?

When we were done with the ride we had lost the group, which we found out later, had left us to go to the next place, lunch. Um, okay, thanks for the heads up. Glad we didn't spend 10 hellish minutes looking for you, before dragging the kids back to the car so I could use my cell phone.

So I packed the whining, hungry, thirsty children into the van and drove the five miles down the road to get to the cafe we had all planned to meet at.

Lunch was worse. Bella refuses to sit in her seat, rolling on the floor, licking the air vents on the floor, smashing her food, screaming when told to sit and using the bathroom as many times as I would allow her. *I would love to blame this on the pure exhaustion from the farm, but this is typical Bella behavior at a restaurant.*

Please someone tell me what I am doing wrong? Please someone help me understand and deal appropriately with Sensory Intergration Disorder? Please someone tell me it will only get better and Bella will be able to handle daily life one day without trained professionals following her every move?
Please tell me I am not selfish for wanting the VOC to never again include our children in our outings?
Please tell me I wasn't a bitch when one of the other Mom's said, "this was fun!" and I didn't reply?

My Eat, Pray, Love kind of day

So the original plan today was to go bowling or batting cages while both kids were in school since Joe has Wednesday's off and we have 3 wonderful kid free hours to do what we like, but after chit-chatting with other parents in the parent room at school till 9:15 that only left us a little over two hours. Poop.

We ate breakfast at Eggtc. A cute, hip little cafe downtown. We had never been to this breakfast joint and it was really tasty. That's my eat part.

Then with only an hour left before we went back to pick up Remi. I had this fun, quirky idea to head over to this house that we have passed many times with a sign in the front yard stating palm readings for $10.Bucks. Sweet. Cheap and funny, perfect way to waste an hour.
We walk up to the front door and the sign instructed us to ring bell and wait. So we did, long enough, that I begin to wonder if anyone was actually going to open the door.
Then this old Indian woman opened the door as she hung up from her cordless phone. I immediately began to doubt my idea, but what's ten dollars?
She informs us that she tells no lies and has been doing this for 50 years and many generations past along their knowledge to her, oh and that the ten dollar one was for kids. We had a choice of $25/50/99. The first option was for just palm reading, the second was for palm and card and the last was for complete reading with crystals and cleansing.
Since she didn't have a Visa machine, I sent Joe on his way to an ATM while she started on my palm. My palm disturbed her so much that she went on with a tarot reading too.

I know, what your thinking, I was thinking the same thing.

Then she started talking and that's when I had to work hard to keep my poker face in place. !!Holy fireballs!!
First thing she said to me (and I won't even try to imitate her accent) 'was that I want to run away, every morning, but I always come back, I will always come back'. This is a deep secret that probably only a handful of people know about me. Mostly because it sounds sad, selfish and small of me. I do want to run away. I've cried many of nights on Joe's shoulders telling him that this (being my life) is too hard and I just want to run away from it all. Whether, that be for a week or months or years...not that I ever really could run away, but it's there. Gnawing at me like a wild beast trying to escape from my chest.
Second she went on to tell me that 'I was a fixer, I like to fix too many people, give problem to me and I fix'. Um, yeah, dead on. I will stress over a friends problem just like my Mother does and want to take it on like my own to make them feel better.
'big worry lines, worry over everything, so sad on inside, breaking apart, but smiles on outside'. Guilty. I have been so sad lately that I can cry on cue.
She wanted to know what I worry over. Lover,child,money? "No" she says "Lover,but husband, he work wrong work and leave family, you two drift apart, no good, no fix lover only bring you down, you too many fixes, absorbed too many bad aura's, I fix you, I pray for you, you meditate? no. need to meditate. . Um, I have been talking about trying meditation to ease stress and anxiety every since I read that book(Eat,Pray,Love) a few months back.

She tells me to pick up three cards scattered on this table next to the couch. And at first I pick up the first three I see, then laugh and say something about mixing it up a little, so I dig around and find three cards and hand them over to the Indian lady.

Ready for it to get even weirder?

First card is of a sad lady that she tells me is me, "see you so sad, lady in picture is you and you go on trip to sea on boat?" I reply that only in my dreams, but in truth, I am trying to plan a Mom's trip and just last week I sent an email to a few of them with cruise options and was super excited over the prices and thought that the cruise would be a perfect choice for all of us..."no" she said "you must go on big boat at sea and be happy, you must.
Moving on to the second card...It's of a baby with a small star in the background or something. She asks, "you have have sick baby? no baby walk or talk, trouble baby? no worry over sick baby she be fine, you worry too much over baby. she good, no?" This is when I might have shed a small tear. It's not like I have a sign on me that says, Mother of Disabled Kid.

Now, Joe comes back from the ATM at this time and she rushes him in with great urgency and insists on reading his palm. She is dead on with him too. Yo-yo thoughts, bad job, worry, feels like he failed his family, should own your own business, not make right choices, not to trust friends and family. She goes on to tell him to make a wish and she says she grants it or tells him that she will make it true, then since he didn't have any more money, she was done with him.

Then she looks at Joe and tells him to go away, that she needs to speak to me in private. Poor Joe heads out the door and I'm a little nervous about what she is going to tell me, but she goes back to looking at my hand with her little wand waving over it.
"oh I pray, you two much love for each other, but jealousy in house not good for you two, he mean to you with words some days only since he yo-yo and not know better, bad aura you soak up, no fix him, he fix himself, due time he will" Just at breakfast I had told Joe that he was being mean to me with his snappy remarks, something that we are both bad about.
Then she goes on to tell me that "all friends I have, be careful, they no like me behind my back but smile to face, very jealous of me, no good for me, someone has such bad aura around you and you are hidden, let me fix you soon. How soon?"

Third card is of an angel. Someone close to me or someone that meant something to me, very dear to me. That could be two things either my Grandmother who I did adore or my miscarriage, but both of these are so broad that I don't mention either and she continues on.

I tell her that maybe in a few weeks we could try a little of this crystal cleansing that she kept talking about and she refused making me promise sooner. I told her I would try, then she gets a phone call, but no one is there so I take that as my chance to stand up and leave. She stands with me and gives me a big hug. I sort of hug her back. She tells me once again that "she fix me, she like me a lot, I am happy, but sad now, I be happy so soon again" and that she 'likes my big man and to remember to love him and share with him everything'. "Come back even if you no money, I help. Call me anytime with questions, I help you".

Wow! That's the pray and love part of my day.

Really I was astounded with her and greatly intrigued. And if she is full of baloney. Then call me Oscar.
Maybe she is suppose to be my Guru