Month: August 2012

Aaron’s been hard to rouse out of bed for the past several days.  I keep the monitor on at night and haven’t heard any seizures so I don’t think it’s seizure related.  Maybe he’s staying up too late reading at night.  Or maybe it’s because we take his keyboard away at night and so he doesn’t have the excitement of a game to wake up to each morning.

He also wakes up talking about very tired he is.  Last week he said, “Mom, I slipped out of bed at 6:17.”

You slipped out of bed?    “Yes!  I was on the edge and then I just slipped out!”  I asked him if his sheets were slippery but he didn’t react to that like others might have.  Sometimes I think I’m quite funny but Aaron rarely thinks I’m quite funny……….which I also find to be quite funny, actually.  His lack of reaction to my jokes really is hilarious sometimes.

Back to his slipping out of bed…………..I said, “So you mean that you FELL out of bed?”

“Yeah, I slipped out of bed.  Have you ever slipped out of bed?”  Well, Aaron, I have slipped out of bed but not the way that you slipped out of bed.  I actually slipped out of bed whereas you actually fell out of bed, obviously, etc., etc., etc.  I had this conversation with myself, by the way – not with Aaron.  He would not have valued it like I did, believe me.

This morning he was snug under his covers and did not appreciate my efforts to get him up.  I was kind; I was soft spoken; I didn’t linger long or have many words…………in other words, I did everything possible to ease him into this cruel reality that he was going to have to get out of bed. When I have to go in and wake him up, he’s often grouchy.  When he gets up on his own terms then he’s usually in a better mood.    Finally, I walked past his bedroom and on my way downstairs I simply told him that I was going to pour his coffee and get him a bowl of his favorite applesauce.  Soon I heard him laboring down the stairs and as he walked into the kitchen, I tried to ignore him and be unaffected by his grouchy face.  It’s better to be low-key when Aaron is grumpy.  I fixed his applesauce, laid out his comics, and poured his coffee………..all while listening to him tell me once again about how tired he was and that he didn’t want to be bothered.

OK, Aaron, I’m going back upstairs to finish getting ready.  Off I went, knowing that he wanted to be alone…………or at least ACTED like he wanted to be alone.  He polished off his applesauce quickly, and soon I heard him laboring back up the stairs.  And Aaron, who wanted to be left alone and not to be bothered because he was so tired, walked into my bathroom where I was getting ready.  He was carrying his coffee, which he carefully placed on the bathroom counter.  He sat down beside his coffee, getting settled and comfortable in the room with the person that he didn’t want to be around, according to him.  He sat there looking at me as I just ignored him and kept getting ready.  I didn’t say a word.  He slurped some coffee.  He wiggled into an even more comfy position.  He slurped some more coffee.  He watched me closely and I just kept quiet, not acknowledging him in any way.

Finally he broke the silence and said, “I wish you would just leave me alone.”

Seriously, Aaron?  So why did YOU come up the stairs and why did YOU come in my bathroom and why did YOU sit down here and why did YOU settle here to slurp your coffee………..but you wish that I would leave YOU alone?  Oh, never mind.  Another conversation with myself!  I talk to myself a lot around Aaron, and he doesn’t even know it.

The fact is, he doesn’t really want to be left alone and ignored, no matter how much he tries to act like he does.   Leave me alone, Mom…………but don’t really leave me alone.  Don’t really ignore me.

And as he showed me once again this morning, even when I’m really trying to ignore him, he won’t let me!  He can’t verbalize like you and I can, but he does manage to get his message across.

I can get my message across, too.  Tomorrow I may just show him what it means to be PUSHED out of bed!

Those of you who have followed Aaron for a long time know that he talks a lot about his weight.  He makes many comments about losing weight, such as, “Mom, am I losing weight?”………..even as he’s cramming his fifth croissant roll into his mouth from the stash he bought at Wal-Mart.  Or, “Mom, have I lost weight?”……….as he turns to look sideways in the mirror.  Or one of my favorites:  “Mom, am I halfway losing weight?”  Many of us adopted that statement as our mantra when I first publicized it…………we’re all halfway losing weight!!

Aaron does love to eat, though, like most of us do – and so his desire to lose weight is offset by his desire to eat.  He makes excuses for what he eats, like the time I made Rice Krispie treats and he asked if he could have one.  Before I knew it, he was walking across the kitchen with a huge stuck-together Rice Krispie treat square.  “Wait a minute, Aaron!” I declared.  “What on earth are you doing?”   And he replied, “Mom, I was just trying to pull one off and it did this!”

So you couldn’t correct what it did, Aaron?  How convenient!

Or the time the staff at his day group fixed burritos and Aaron was excited to tell me all about it.  “Mom!  Today they fixed burritos!  They did this thing that if you ate one then you could have another one!”

Really, Aaron?  How many did you have?  He answered, very flatly, “I had four.”  FOUR?  You had FOUR burritos?  Good grief!

Then another meal at Paradigm featured some garlic cheese bread on the side.  Of course, we heard his assessment of that when he got home.  “Mom, we had some mushy bread at Paradigm today.  It had garlic and cheese on it.”  I told him that this bread sounded yummy despite the fact that he thought it was mushy.  He said, “Well, I didn’t like that mushy bread but I ate a bunch of it.”

Why does he eat a bunch of something he doesn’t like anyway?!

Aaron is specific about his food, such as when I was serving him some mashed potatoes.  “Mom, I want the gravy INSIDE the potatoes.”  It’s funny how well I understand him…………kind of scary, too.

So this morning Aaron strolled into my bathroom as I fixed my hair.  He had just showered and I was not prepared to see him walk in wearing only his underwear.  Modesty is not his strong point, no matter how often we stress that is should be.  As I said, “Well, Aaron!” ………..and he was totally unaffected by my exclamation………..I realized that he was on a mission.  I assumed we were about to have another “am I losing weight?” conversation, when instead he said, “Mom?  Am I getting muscles?”  He then bent his arm and flexed his muscles, and stood there waiting for my answer.

How on earth do I not laugh out loud when my grown son is standing there in his favorite striped briefs, flexing his arm and asking me if he has muscles?  Well, I did laugh and he smiled but still waited for my answer as he continued:  “Am I getting strong?  I wanted your opinion.”  I had no idea that Aaron ever thought about the manly trait of being strong.  I’m still wondering where this all came from.

In the meantime, Aaron, you want my opinion?   Yes, you are getting strong.  That’s why I had you carry the big bag of dog food out to the van for me on Saturday.  He was pleased with that answer, even as I was coming to grips with this new side of my boy who is really a man.

You want another opinion?  Please put your shorts on…….your carpenter shorts!  Spare me the sight of you flexing your muscles standing there in your underwear.

It’s enough to make me lose weight, and not just halfway!

Aaron asks lots of questions.  Some questions he asks over and over again, and we know that he will continue to ask them over and over again as long as the sun rises and sets.  Sometimes Aaron wants to talk things to death, on and on and on.  Yet when it comes to most of the questions he asks us, he simply wants a simple answer.  Concise and to the point.  Gary and I know this, but do we always follow what we know?  Of course not!  But Aaron will remind us, that’s for sure!

Yesterday Aaron was anxious to play a game on the computer.  We had taken the keyboard away for awhile as we do every day, and had also taken that particular game away because of behaviors the night before.  Aaron went outside to ask Gary if he could have the keyboard back and the answer was yes.  But then Aaron asked if he could have that particular game back, and the answer wasn’t so simple.

Gary wanted to emphasize to Aaron once again the reason we had taken the game away…………what we expected from him if we gave him the game back…………and several other points that were well worth making – except that Aaron was totally uninterested in this long answer.  He quickly became lost in all the words even as he tried to focus and to listen.  I heard Aaron take advantage of several pauses in Gary’s answer to ask again, “But Dad, can I play that game?”  And still the answer continued.  I listened, knowing exactly where Aaron was going mentally with all of this.

Finally Aaron had heard enough and he burst out, “Dad!  You’re not answering my question the way that I’m asking it!!”

Once again Aaron yanked us back to reality and made us smile.  How many times do we do that, I wondered, whether with Aaron or with others?  And I know there are times that I wish I had the freedom to blurt that statement out to someone who is not answering my question the way that I asked it!!

I won’t say that to Aaron, though, because so often in his random answers to our questions we learn so much about what makes his amazing mind function the way that it does.

This is the time of year when many moms and dads are experiencing what Gary and I have gone through this week – saying goodbye to an adult child who is going to college or moving away for a job or has gotten married or any number of other scenarios.  Our daughter, Andrea, was accepted into the graduate program at the University of North Texas Health Sciences Center and will pursue her master’s………….and probably PhD……….in Forensic Genetics.  Can you tell that we’re proud of her?  She has been so patient to wait on God’s timing for this big decision, and in the past six months He definitely opened some amazing doors in order for her to move in this direction now.

But she is still our little girl in our hearts in many ways, even as we’ve seen her mature and assume major responsibilities over the past few years.  She went straight from college into a job as an EMT in an inner city emergency room, handling all sorts of traumas and stresses with her quiet strength.  Then she spent a calmer year as an assistant to a Sports Medicine doctor in a normal clinic setting.  And for the past six months, she worked as a Microbiologist in a pharmaceutical lab.  All of these experiences helped confirm to her what she felt like God wanted her to do………which was none of the above!  Her acceptance into grad school came at just the right time in very many ways, and we are all very pleased and thankful.

It was still heart wrenching to drive away from her this past week and watch her walk back to her apartment while we traveled back home without her.  She has lived an hour away for the past six months, and that was good preparation for her and for us.  But now she’s far enough away that those weekend visits won’t happen like they used to.  Distance and the demands of school will make our visits far fewer and farther between than we’ve ever had before.  I know that we appreciate technology now, too, more than we ever have before!  She and her brother Andrew are only a text or a Skype session away………but still…………

All this leaving business leaves me drained………fragile………unbalanced.  And very emotional.  But truly, as I knew it would, the feelings are becoming easier to manage.  I remember when Andrew left for college.  For his first year, he was only 40 miles away but as I said goodbye to him I cried as if I was leaving him in Alaska.  He awkwardly patted me as we hugged and he said, “Uh, Mom…….I’m only 40 miles away.”  Kids just don’t understand a mother’s heart!  I smile now, and I so remember the actual physical dizziness I felt for several days after he left.  When our children leave, we seem to lose part of our purpose and our routine, and the hole left in our heart makes it hard to stand up straight and breathe.  But we must breathe and we must go on and we must function.  Somehow we do.  God is faithful that way as he enables us to go forward in His strength.

And then Gary and I have Aaron.  Good old blunt Aaron.  Not just blunt, either………..but verbalizing this whole goodbye process as he tries to come to grips with the fact that his sister has moved so far away.  Distance is relative to Aaron.  He can’t touch it or see it, so it’s hard for him to grasp.  When Andrea lived an hour away, he was used to her coming home on Saturdays and spending the night.  Still he would often ask, “Mom, is Andrea coming over on Saturday?”

The other day, after we had returned from taking her to Texas, Aaron asked his familiar question.  “Mom, is Andrea coming over on Saturday?”

No, Aaron.  She isn’t coming over on Saturday.

“On Friday is Andrea coming?”

No, not on Friday, either.

He persisted.  “But can’t there be any other days that she can visit?”

I reminded him of the map we had examined and that her new home is now too far away for many visits.

And the final reality.  “No more coming to visit?  Is that it?”

Oh Aaron.  I managed to keep from crying and I assured him that we would see her………….just not as often………..and he walked away with not another word, trying to absorb this new part of his life.

I can’t wait for his first Skype experience with his sister……….to see and hear how he’ll react.  Knowing Aaron, he’ll just laugh uncomfortably and then launch into the kinds of things he launched into at breakfast with Gary and I.   It’ll be all about him and his interests, but that’s what we expect and that’s what makes us laugh.  As he told me this morning, “Mom, I was watching a Looney Tunes video last night before bed and I was laughing so hard my eyes became watery!”

I know, Aaron.  My eyes are watery lately, too!  And it’s not always because I’m laughing, but it’s OK.  I’m breathing and I’m thankful for all of my children…………and I’m very much looking forward to the next time that they can come over for a visit!!

This past weekend found us moving Andrea out of her apartment an hour from here as we prepared to take her down to Texas to begin her new life as a graduate student.  Andrew got home late Friday night and on Saturday, with the help of wonderful friends, we got the U-Haul loaded and ready for the trip to Texas on Sunday.  I was dreading all the “lasts” that accompany a time like this and was trying hard not to dwell on them.  Saturday’s supper around our table was one of those “lasts” that I was going to be facing and I was praying that I would stay composed and not get emotional.  I should have known that having Aaron eat with us was the answer I needed.  Oh, he can raise our emotions for sure……………just not the kind that I was dreading.  Thankfully, on this “last supper for a long time” together, Aaron had us laughing.  He had no idea what a relief he brought to us that night!

As always, he talked and talked and talked some more to us, his captive audience.  He does know how to seize the moment when we are all together and then monopolize the conversation.  I don’t remember all that he talked about………….we never do………….and there are times that we try to forget what he said, trust me.  He was very excited about the fact that we were leaving because that meant that Krysten was coming to stay with him………….and that meant eating out and getting pizza and renting movies and having one-on-one time and attention that perfectly suits his “it’s all about me” mind set.  He was looking forward to a break from old Mom and Dad.  Little did he know how much we were looking forward to a break from old Aaron, too!  Ha!

As always, he talked about his latest movie that he’s watching and Handy Answer Religion Book that he’s reading.  He talked about the dog and the weather and what he’s done lately at his day group.  Talking about his day group, Paradigm, reminded him that Brandy, Paradigm’s owner, apparently had some of her family visit………..except that Aaron didn’t refer to these people as Brandy’s family.

“Hey!  Yesterday some of Brandy’s ancestors came to Paradigm.”

We knew right away what Aaron meant.  He continued, “I think they were 5.”

Hmmm……….pretty young ancestors she has.

“So why did she bring her ancestors to Paradigm?  I don’t get why she had her ancestors there.”

So we discussed Brandy’s ancestors coming to Paradigm and how they are actually called relatives and why they might have been there……………and all the while, Aaron kept calling them ancestors.  And he always will.

I had fixed Lasagna for supper, so as Aaron talked we watched him meticulously separate the meat from the cheese.  This was quite a process as Aaron hunched over his plate and scraped and separated, never missing a chance to talk in the midst of this serious food re-arrangement.  Then suddenly he remembered it…………a billboard he had seen while driving with his group.

“Mom!  I saw a sign!  You know, one of those big signs on the road.”

Yes, Aaron…………a billboard.

“Yeah, a billboard!  You know what it said?”

He paused for us to answer………..for us to tell him that we did not know what it said.  He loves this part.

“It said – cornstalk powder for butts!!”

Cornstalk powder for butts?  So now we were all cramming the lasagna in our mouths in an effort to keep from bursting out laughing, as I told Aaron that I bet this was actually cornSTARCH powder.

“Yeah!  Cornstalk powder!  And it’s for butts!  What’s that for?!”

So we had a discussion at this our “last supper together for awhile” about cornstalk powder which is really cornSTARCH powder and why it’s good for baby’s butts.  This is a place I didn’t expect to be during this meal, but I have to say that it did keep my mind off the fact that Andrea was leaving.  And instead of holding back the tears, we were holding back the laughter.

Thank you, Aaron.  You do have a way of diverting us from the reality at hand.  Do you ever!  But finally the subject of Andrea’s soon departure did arise.  Aaron came to attention and we wondered what he was getting ready to say.

“Andrea!  Look what I bought the other day!”  He got up from the table, went into the kitchen, and came back carrying the three…………yes, THREE……….bags of Reese Cups that he had bought at Wal-Mart.

And he said, “Here.  You can have this to take to Texas.”  He handed her a bag of unopened Reese cups.  Normally she would not want them, but she saw his heart and his real message of love.  She accepted the Reese cups and thanked him warmly………….and he was very pleased.

The next morning she went up to his room before we left.  He was sitting at his computer and she gave him a hug and said goodbye.  He just mumbled an unconcerned “OK” and “See you later” and kept playing his game.  She smiled when she came downstairs.  We know and understand Aaron so well.  Anything BUT the mumbled response would have been very surprising.

But there in her little apartment in Texas, as we helped her unpack on Monday, lay that bag of Reese cups.  There lay tangible proof of Aaron’s love, each piece tightly wrapped, waiting to be opened and enjoyed.  Just like our Aaron…………..opening himself in his Aaron way for us to see his heart.

See you later, Andrea!  Enjoy the Reese cups!

In a few days we will move our daughter, Andrea, down to Fort Worth so she can begin graduate school.  Aaron is very attached to Andrea and sees her more as a mother figure than a sister.  She’s lived an hour away for the past 6 months, and every weekend Aaron asks if Andrea is “coming over to see us.”  He knows that she is moving to Texas, and has once again asked if she will “come over to see us” when she moves.  I’ve told him that she won’t be able to come over as often now.  He hasn’t acted upset at this outwardly, but has been quiet when I’ve told him that fact.  He’s processing all of this, as he always does.

One of the first facts that he processed involved the state of Texas itself.  Aaron loves maps and flags and always wants to know where places are located geographically.  One day as he talked about Andrea’s move to Texas, he said, “So Texas is underneath Kansas.  It’s the place of cowboys!”

More or less, Aaron, on both counts.

A couple weeks ago, when Andrea had “come over”, we were eating supper and suddenly Aaron looked at Andrea and said, “Andrea, I can give you a movie to take down there.”    Aaron has quite a collection of DVDs and he loves them, so this was a very generous offer…………..or so we thought.  Until he added:

“You can get it from the shelf on this side of my desk.” –  as he made a hand motion indicating which side he was talking about.   “Those are the ones I don’t like.”

Um……….well………..thanks, Aaron.

One thing you can always count on is that Aaron will be honest……….totally, unashamedly honest.

Aaron was quite pleased with himself and didn’t know why on earth we were laughing.  Later, when Andrea went up to his room, she teasingly asked him if she could take some DVDs from the other side of his desk……….from the large bookshelf full of DVDs that he DOES like………….and that he did not offer to her.  He thought for a few seconds and then told her that, yes, she could take some from that shelf.  And added, “You tell me which ones I don’t like.”  Huh?

Dear honest Aaron.  As is so often the case, we have to sort through what he says or does and still see his heart.  He does love Andrea and to him he was showing that love.

But only on THIS side of his desk!!