I'm driving my life away...

For the past week I have spent nearly every waking minute in the car! Just today, I have driven from Greensburg to Robinson and back and have to drive clear out to Penn Hills this afternoon for an allergist's appointment for Aidyn. I feel like my bum is permanently attached to the car seat and even my clutch leg is getting cramps!

All whining aside, I think that I need a vacation from vacations and visiting. After our whirlwind trip out to Ohio for Nanna's Christmas play this Saturday, we are taking a break. Chas has three finals this week and I have 17 chapter outlines to finish by Saturday at 10 am. Then off to ELO for the play and then I plan on sleeping for a week! I still have this miserable cold and I want nothing more right now than to sleep the sleep of the tired and weary. Plus...I don't want to drive anymore!

On Lancaster...and the need to learn Spanish...

On Lancaster...and the need to learn Spanish...

We are home for a second...so of course I had to get on here to give myself a little downtime. I thought I would share something funny I've learned over the past three days with you all though. We went to Lancaster this weekend for a wedding of friends (congrats Danny and Breann!) and to peruse Amish country, land of smorgasbords and outlet shopping. In total during our three days, we saw ONE actual Amish/Mennonite (I'm not sure which faith they ascribe to...I only know that they were driving a buggy parked at Wal-mart and assume they are something considering the lack of car). However, we saw ten thousand Hispanic individuals...at our hotel, each restaurant we visited, each shop we went into and waiting tables at the wedding and bars. I have come to the conclusion that the Pennsylvania Dutch have been supplanted by a huge community of Spanish-speaking individuals! It was kinda funny...all of these busloads of old people and tourists trying to get the "authentic" Amish country experience with waitresses with accents dressed in Amish attire (complete with a Catholic-style crucifix and Our Lady of Guadeloupe holy medals on their necklace). Hysterical what lengths idiotic tourists will force on people! I laughed out loud for the insanity of it all. I am sure that there are Amish in Lancaster County, but they sure aren't waiting tables at the restaurants or selling you quilts (that have "Made in Taiwan" tags on them) at the outlet mall...they are at home, working a field or taking care of their family and staying as far away from the craziness the rest of the world loves! My heart goes out to the poor wait staff and others that have to deal with busloads of old women from Cleveland asking if that pie they want to buy was made by "a real Amish", etc...are you kidding me?

It's hard to hug a tree with a cold...

Okay...I am feeling extreme guilt. Some of you (read as most of you) already think I'm insane. Well, you're right. And now you have proof in the form of tissues...

So here's the story...I have a lousy cold. I'm congested and sneezing and all the other symptoms that go along with those old medicine commercials. I have been blowing my nose for two days. But...as I pick up tissues...the guilt sets in. How many trees have I killed for tissues today? I know, a little extreme, but its the OTC cold meds talking. I decide that I will use a hankie, as the dainty ladies in Victorian days did...that way I can just run it through the wash and voila! No dead trees.

Good plan...bad execution. The dainty hankie experiment worked all of an hour. I couldn't take it...DISGUSTING. I have to go back to my kleenex, guilt be damned...sigh, sniffle, sneeze.

The tragic downfall of Saint Krista the dieter...

The tragic downfall of Saint Krista the dieter...

Yeah...Thanksgiving. I formed a very deep, personal relationship with a very, very cheap bottle of white zinfandel yesterday. It was one of those relationships that wasn't planned...I just sat in my comfy chair and chatted with the family. Whenever Chas would get up to check on the kids in the game room, I would have him fill my glass. Unfortunately, he apparently checked on the kids WAY more than I realized, because by the end of the evening I was confusing Mike Myers and Michael Moore in conversation (I knew the difference, but just couldn't remember the stupid name, thank you very much Nicky!) and had a good 1500 calories or so over my already generous holiday calorie allotment. So this morning, as I stepped on the scale...I saw the damage. 7 lbs up...yuck. Worst of all...I have a lousy sinus infection coming on and I can't take any meds until I'm sure the alcohol is out of my system.

Stupid wine...even dumber Krista...it'll take me a week at least to get that weight off and we have a wedding next weekend. I really need to pay more attention when I sip/slurp/suck down wine!

So ends the tale of the not-so-saintly dieter and her wino binge!

The absolute misery of shopping for shoes...

The absolute misery of shopping for shoes...

You know...shopping for shoes should not be a punishment of the magnitude Aidyn makes it. It took us literally hours and hours to find him a pair of winter boots today. Every pair had a problem that made him spaz out in his characteristic manner. Either the tag rubbed his leg...the top of the boot was too tight...the laces scratched his skin...ARGH! I would have gladly settled for just finding problems with sizes...but no, not for my little psychotic shoe shopper. He literally threw an all-out hissy fit over shoes! He didn't have temper tantrums like this at 2, let alone 6. We finally found a pair that he is willing to give a try...but only after I take the linings out...take all of the tags off and trim any excess "fluffiness" away from his ankles. Goodness gracious greatness!!!

After the boot fiasco and literally six different stores, I was finally committed to throwing in the towel. He needs a new pair of house slippers too, but after trying about 10 pair on, I gave up. He wants the impossible! It should not be this hard to get my kid shod. I know tags bother him and fabrics bother him and hard soles bother him and "fluffy" shoes bother him...but what in the world! Sometimes I just lose patience and want to pull my hair out. I'm going gray from shoe shopping, I swear.

Playing through the pain

ARGH!!! I am so tired of being sore...I am tired of hurting! I am tired out constantly aching in places that aren't even polite to mention in mixed company! So this is a bit of a gripe post, so forgive me ahead of time.

It seems that I am constantly in some form of "rehab" for various exercise ailments. When I first started walking, I had wicked problems with plantar fascitis. My foot hurt so much that walking from the couch to the bathroom was agony. Then, while that still flares up from time to time, came the the shin splints. Once I nursed the shin splints and finally healed enough to really run, more disaster strikes. Now its "piriformis syndrome"...which is just wedMD's way of saying that I have muscles pinching and compressing my sciatic nerve. Will this never end? I had been doing so well...my weight was on the downhill again and I got sidelined again for more pain. It seems I am always pulling, straining or tearing something.

I am not a whiner...well, I am a whiner. Who am I kidding? But I have tried to "play through the pain" and I have learned that I just hurt myself worse or end up taking longer to recover. I'm not exactly a world-class athlete here...I just want to run and lift a little. Is that so hard? So this morning I plan on a great run...I've taken a couple days off to recoup. I am psyched and ready to go. Through the warm-up I am a little tight, but I figure I can push through. I get about a mile or so into the run and absolutely feel great. I keep up the pace and about at mile 2 I start hurting a little. By the time I hit mile 3 I am in agony and have to stop. Stupid hip. How long is this going to take to heal???

A little about Asperger’s Syndrome...

Asperger's Disorder was first described in the 1940s by Viennese pediatrician Hans Asperger who observed autistic-like behaviors and difficulties with social and communication skills in boys who had normal or above average intelligence and language development. Many professionals felt Asperger's Disorder was simply a milder form of autism and used the term "high-functioning autism" to describe these individuals. Professor Uta Frith, with the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience of University College London and author of Autism and Asperger Syndrome, describes individuals with Asperger's Disorder as "having a dash of Autism." Asperger's Disorder was added to the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) in 1994 as a separate disorder from autism. However, there are still many professionals who consider Asperger's Disorder a less severe form of autism.

What distinguishes Asperger's Disorder from autism is the severity of the symptoms and the absence of language delays. Children with Asperger's Disorder may be only mildly affected and frequently have good language and cognitive skills. To the untrained observer, a child with Asperger's Disorder may just seem like a normal child behaving differently.

Children with autism are frequently seen as aloof and uninterested in others. This is not the case with Asperger's Disorder. Individuals with Asperger's Disorder usually want to fit in and have interaction with others; they simply don't know how to do it. They may be socially awkward, not understanding of conventional social rules. Interests in a particular subject may border on the obsessive. Children with Asperger's Disorder frequently like to collect categories of things, such as rocks or bottle caps. They may be proficient in knowing categories of information, such as baseball statistics or Latin names of flowers. While they may have good rote memory skills, they have difficulty with abstract concepts.

One of the major differences between Asperger's Disorder and autism is that, by definition, there is no speech delay in Asperger's. In fact, children with Asperger's Disorder frequently have good language skills; they simply use language in different ways. Speech patterns may be unusual, lack inflection or have a rhythmic nature or it may be formal. These children benefit greatly from speech therapy to learn articulation and inflection. Children with Asperger's Disorder may not understand the subtleties of language, such as irony and humor, or they may not understand the give and take nature of a conversation. They often take everything said literally and to heart.

Another distinction between Asperger's Disorder and autism concerns cognitive ability. While some individuals with Autism experience mental retardation, by definition a person with Asperger's Disorder cannot possess a "clinically significant" cognitive delay and most possess an average to above average intelligence. While motor difficulties are not a specific criteria for Asperger's, children with Asperger's Disorder frequently have motor skill delays and may appear clumsy or awkward and require occupational and/or physical therapy.

The uniqueness of each individual with autism or Asperger's makes the experience of raising a child with these issues different for each family. But there are some consistent themes or issues that most families will want to be aware to be able to provide the best support to the individual and to family members.

Autism Society of America
2008

Remember how a couple months back when Aidyn was constantly going to doctor's appointments, therapy sessions and a host of other specialists? Remember when I swore that eventually we find something that explained all of our issues with speech, OT, PT and social situations? Apparently there is a name to cover them all according to Children's Hospital's evaluation on Aidyn...its called Asperger Syndrome.

Don't go looking for trouble...or you'll find it.