I stopped getting my reliable 4 o’clock headache. I got it for months and it came just at the time of day when I was wrapping things for work, helping Andrew with his homework, keeping Isaac busy so Andrew and I could work and starting to think about dinner. I don’t miss the headache.

I feel tired at the end of the day, but it feels like a different kind of tired. More gentle and calm and less frantic and “I-need-to-sleep-right-NOW”!

I feel lonelier. I really, really liked my coworkers. And even though I worked from home I was still in touch with everyone, every day. I became known as “funny”…which still strikes me as curious. I’ve never been in a job when I was the funny one before. Coworkers told me that they knew when someone was reading an email I sent from the giggling… “reading an email from Robyn again?” I LOVED that! I miss it.

I have more time to do things. An obvious one, but one that keeps surprising me. During the day I can take time to tidy in the silverware drawer as I’m putting things away because I’m not in a mad rush. I can do things at a nice pace and NOT think “I don’t have time for this!”

I can be more involved with my kids’ schools. Today I am going on a field trip with Isaac’s class. I helped Andrew put together a crazy hat for Crazy Hat Day last week. These things aren’t sneaking up on me now…I see them coming.

I feel a little nervous. Not about money…more about time…and fulfillment. Each day I wonder if everything will be okay. Will I have enough to do? Will I start to feel useless? And then…when I don’t have enough to do, or start to feel useless what will I do then? How will I fix it? I’m not too worried about these things…I feel like I’ve gotten really good at answering these kinds of questions…but I’m still curious about it.

I keep forgetting about the laundry, which never happened before. I could spend all day working hard, and STILL keep on top of the laundry. I have NO idea what that’s about.

I think for the most part, the transition is over. It was a little sadder for me than I expected, but I think I’m on the other side of it now, with rhythm found.

I am really glad to have more time for baking. Spending time baking is good for my soul…especially a-notch-up baking! Like dipping shortbread in chocolate and using sprinkles and nuts to decorate. Ahhh…now THERE is time well spent!

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With Isaac’s recent birthday, Andrew totally knocked it out of the park. He was SO excited about Isaac’s birthday, helped me make the pizzas and decorate and brought home Isaac a jumbo birthday card from school with reasons why he loved Isaac (mostly having to do with the awesome toys Isaac received at his party: “I love you because of your tunnels. I love those tunnels.” HA!). But the detail I wanted to remember most, was the gift Andrew made for Isaac. It’s one of those homemade treasures that’s not bound to last long because it’s cardboard box and construction paper construction (and because of how intensely my boys love their favorite toys…to the point of destruction)…so I knew I needed to capture this one quickly.

Here’s what I got:

Andrew, I keep thinking that you should win some kind of Brother of the Year award. You love Isaac so much lately and show it in many, many ways. You play with him and give him hugs constantly. You translate his needs to others (me!) who might not know what he’s trying to communicate. You work hard to find the tricky balance of sharing toys with him while also using those same toys to work on your own fragile projects.

Last week was Isaac’s birthday and we decided to have a Blue’s Clues party for him. You and I looked online at the Blue’s Clues toys on Amazon. Isaac’s favorite character on the show is Ticky Tock, but the only Ticky Tock we could find on Amazon was over $60. You thought that was a perfectly reasonable price to pay for Isaac’s favorite character. I disagreed. So, you decided to make him one. You used a circular box, plastic Easter eggs, pipe cleaners, lollipop sticks and paper to put him together and you gave it to Isaac at his birthday party.

Isaac loved it. He put it on the coffee table and got down nose to nose with Tickity to check him out. He moved the hands around to change the time, and that night, Tickity slept on Isaac’s pillow, right next to Isaac.

I love your relationship with Isaac right now Andrew, and I totally see that the relationship you two have is mostly because of what YOU put into it. I hope that you two can have many, many years (heck, a lifetime!) of enjoying each other so much. Isaac is super, duper, duper lucky to have you in his life.

I also added the tag Andrew put on his gift.

The is not one of my favorite pages in terms of design. The page is lumpy because I ran out of my good glue and use the kids’ glue sticks to put it together. I wish I had put the pink strip at the bottom and shifted the whole thing up. But…the story is captured. I can let go of the rest. :)

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I’ve written about pretend play before (woah! that was two years ago!), and I’m sure it’ll come up again, but there have been some recent developments with pretend play around here that I’m finding sort of exciting.

A friend recently asked me: What’s the big deal? Why is it important? I told her that it’s important for a lot of reasons. A lot of learning happens when kids pretend, mostly they are making sense of the world.

September 11th, 2001 was the first day of school in the town in Massachusetts where I was teaching. My kindergarteners were freshly groomed and adorable and excited for their first day of school…all of which was overshadowed, by the terrorist attacks. Some of my students knew people that were on the planes that crashed. Over the next few weeks all of the kindergarten teachers at the school reported that the kids were playing “crashing airplanes”. One boy would set up a block tower and make a toy airplane knock it down, just to set it back up and repeat the scenario over and over. The kids in my room were lining up the chairs and playing passenger and flight attendant. They were using play to make sense of the terrorist attacks, to try to understand it better.

That classroom was bilingual. Half of my students were primarily Spanish speaking and half were primarily English speaking. I taught half the day in Spanish and half the in English with the goal of each student learning to read, write, speak and understand both languages. As my students played together I could see that they were teaching each other much more than language. While playing house one day, a little boy emptied the doll clothes into the toy sink to pretend to wash them. He dunked and scrubbed the little clothes in the waterless sink with impressive fervor while the other kids looked on mesmerized…heck…while I looked on mesmerized! Washing clothes in the sink was a new idea to a lot of us in there, but was obviously something this little boy was adept at. I loved seeing all of the ways my students learned and practiced experiences through their play.

As I’ve mentioned before, my own boys are not very interested in pretend play.

Andrew has gotten a lot better at it. Most of his play involves flying something around while he makes rocket noises…but sometimes I hear him talking quietly to himself as he plays. Pretending still isn’t a preferred activity for Andrew, and he’s found other ways to work things out that are bothering him. A few years ago, when he was being evaluated for Special Education, he began an EXTENSIVE maze drawing period. The maze drawing would come and go almost exactly in tune with the stress factors in his life. The more change and stress he was experiencing, the more mazes he would draw. He wasn’t using pretend play to work things out, instead he found something else that seemed to suit him better.

Isaac has been learning pretend play in school. They actually sit with him and teach him how to do it. His speech therapist does it as she works on prepositions with him. His teachers do it as they work on sharing and interacting with other kids. When I drop him off at school I’ve noticed he’s started to request time with little play sets: a school, an airport, the bucket of dinosaurs.

So, for his birthday I thought we should invest in this a little more. We got him a little playmobil school and friends of ours got him the playmobil school bus. He liked it, but it seems like he’s really not sure what to do. Yesterday I sat down with him to play.

We named all of the students after his classmates and call the teacher by his teacher’s name. The kids all arrived on the bus and came into the classroom for circle time. Then snack time, story time and rest. He was pretty into it. All of the ideas were mine and he just followed along, but he really enjoyed it…especially when we sang the songs they sing at school. While playing with him I noticed who his favorite classmates were because of how often he would reach for and name two of the kids. One of his favorites is a little girl…a total social butterfly who often greets him with a hug. She’s non-verbal, but her messages are clear as day: play with me. And although Isaac usually gives her the cold shoulder, I could tell by watching him play that she really was getting through to him. He genuinely enjoys her, though it doesn’t look like it when I watch them in person.

I also noticed how much opportunity there was to teach Isaac about being with friends through this little set. Yesterday, while the toys were having snack, there was not enough juice to go around, so some of the kids shared. (He had the the little boy we’ve decided is Isaac share with the little girl he likes.) It made me wonder how many other scenarios we could practice on this small scale and if he really WOULD transfer it to his behavior in school. It’s definitely worth tinkering with!

I used to feel so bored by pretend play that I found it painful. I really liked watching my students play, but I didn’t like doing it myself. I couldn’t think of anything to do! My story lines would run out and then what? But with a little toy school and a fascinating kid to work with, I’m feeling pretty encouraged and interested to see what might come of it.

I recently made beer bread with a bottle of Blue Moon Spring Wheat. It has great flavor and no beer was needed for me engage Isaac in pretend play. Good news all around!

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This year for Mother’s Day I made sets of dishtowels for the three mothers in our midst (mine, Dave’s and Dave’s step-mom). I chose two of the boys’ drawings, scanned them and reduced their size to a little smaller than 4×4. Then I traced them onto fabric with a pencil and embroidered over them.

I used a film projector that Andrew drew:

And a little car that Isaac drew:

Then I sealed the edged of the fabric with some homemade binding tape before sewing it down to the dishtowel…and I added a little of that binding tape to the bottom of the dishtowel too.

I really enjoy embroidering their drawings. I’ve done it once before…and then gave it away as gifts…but I need to make some for keeps! :)

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Dave had Saturday all planned out. He drove us out to New Jersey to hike Pyramid Mountain.

The highlight of Pyramid Mountain is Tripod Rock…a huge boulder held up by three smaller rocks, a very cool geological structure, courtesy of glacial activity.

It took us about two hours to reach the rock. Our boys were troopers and LOVED the hike…but were understandably pooped upon arrival.

We kept seeing these caterpillars along the trails. And Andrew wanted to know how they could fly. :)

We got home late that night, bathed the boys and put them right to bed. We all woke up a little sore and tired on Sunday morning. Signs of a great hike! So, Sunday we spent lazing around for a while and finally got out for a drive and headed to the beach.

No lacking for nature in New York! :)

Hope you had a lovely weekend and a great Mother’s Day!

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Yesterday, as I had bread in the oven, muffins cooling on the counter, and was opening photoshop to start a scrapbook page, I felt like I was getting away with something. I was being totally naughty…doing all these fun things on a weekday. Surely there are more work-ish things I should be doing! But, I carried on.

Right now, I LOVE not working. ;) Though…maybe in a week or so I’ll have a different song to sing…right now? It’s lovely.

I decided to use the photos from Isaac’s party last year to put together a simple scrapbook page.

Then, last night, I went into the city to meet:

RUTH! Ruth and I have known about each other through our blogs for several years now. She hails from London and was visiting New York to see some family. She suggested coffee, which turned into cupcakes, and we chatted at a small table in Grand Central for over an hour. She is lovely and darling and elegant and a wonderful, wonderful mama to her sweet little guy. She came bearing gifts, and if you know Ruth at all, I suspect you’re thinking “of course she had gifts!” I can believe I didn’t see that coming!

Ruth, it was great to meet you! Thanks so much!

I wish you all a wonderful weekend and a VERY happy Mother’s Day! But the happiest Mother’s Day to the BEST mom of all: MINE! Love you, Mom. :)

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This first week off has been much busier than I thought it would. Who knew? Just wanted to check in quickly and confirm that there are indeed blueberry muffins in my bread box and beer bread in the oven.

All is right.

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A little over two years ago, one of my good friends was in an accident. Caitlin was riding her bike late at night and was hit by a black livery. She was pulled under the car and the worst of her injuries was a large burn she received from being pressed against the car’s radiator. She spent about six weeks in the hospital and needed two rounds of skin grafting to repair her shoulder and arm from the burn.

Her recovery was inspirational to me. Watching her rebound from this intense trauma in such an intentional way felt healing to me. Even though I was just watching from the sidelines, attempting support through phone calls and cupcakes, I felt like her story affected me in a profound way.

My friend is also a painter. Caitlin’s work is hanging in various galleries across the country. She’s spent time working as an artist-in-residence at a high end resort in the Caribbean. The city of New York hired her to paint a large mural in the financial district. In a field that is very, very hard to break into, she’s made many impressive gains.

Then, sometime last fall, she started to paint Isaac.

She says that she feels connected to Isaac. She says that even though her body is mostly healed from the accident, she knows that experience is something that will always be with her. She’ll always have been in this accident. And she sees ways that it holds her back, but she also sees ways that it has given her life a lot of beauty. She tells me that she sees the same kinds of patterns with Isaac and his autism. There are definitely ways that Isaac’s autism holds him back, but there are also many ways that it gives his life a lot of beauty. And ultimately it’s a universal theme. The things that hold you back aren’t all bad. They are usually more complex than that.

She’s painted him about three or four times now. He’s hanging in a gallery in the Caribbean. He was entered in a contest in London. He’s in progress in her studio in Brooklyn. And now, he’s hanging in our dining room.

For Isaac’s birthday, Caitlin gave him a small portrait. It about 3×5 and it’s incredibly detailed. I think he looks older in this painting, about 8. And when I told her that she said, “well, we’ll see if I’m right.” When he unwrapped it, he knew right away it was him. And when we hung it, he kept trying to take it down to look at it, so we had it hang it higher. :)

Today is Isaac’s actual birthday. He’s 4 years old. And today I feel so, so grateful. Grateful for family and friends that see him as he is and loves, loves, loves him for it. Grateful for these moving stories that unfold as we set about to just live our lives. And very, very grateful for Isaac.

Isaac, you’ve changed everything.  And I am so glad.

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We celebrated Isaac’s birthday this weekend.

We invited a few friends over on Saturday afternoon for a Blue’s Clues-y party. Dave took Isaac to get balloons and while they were gone Andrew and I, and that friends that showed up a little early, quickly decorated. I was a little concerned that Isaac would hit party fatigue just as the party was beginning, so we planned things to limit his party exposure a little to extend how much he could take.

So we did most of the showy stuff while he was out. We put Blue’s pawprints everywhere, hung a banner, set the table and put up these paper balls.

AND we made pizza faces. 16 of them. And I was SO pleased with how they turned out. :) Super, super cute!

Then Isaac showed up, so happy about the Blue’s Clues and totally fine with all these people in his home. :) and so we ate.

And opened presents.

And just hung out for a little while.

And then, cake.

And we sang Happy Birthday and he LOVED it. He squirmed in his chair, all smiles. And when the song was over, he looked at me and said, “Blow out birthday candles?” and I said, “yup! Blow out birthday candles.” And so he did.

It was a great party and he loved it.

I could not find ONE Blue’s Clues thing at the party store. So I got lots of little puppies, little notebooks and crayons for favors.

The next day, when the party was over, there were still balloons floating about losing their helium. He would look up at the balloons and say to me “Who’s party is that?” And I would ask back, “Who’s party IS that?” and he would look at me, smile and say “Isaac’s party!” My sweet boy. I love you SOOO much.

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Yesterday was my last full day of work. I finished the work I needed to do and today, although not really working, I have a feeling I will be on call answering emails and doing last minute details. I am hoping today can mostly be about preparing for Isaac’s party, which is tomorrow.

If you’ve been reading here for a while, you know that I like going crazy-loco-bananas for my kids’ birthday parties. This year though, I really haven’t done much. We are keeping Isaac’s party VERY small since he can get overwhelmed by larger groups. And it’s also going to be quite simple. I didn’t even send out invitations! Just an email!

But I also think it will be a nice time for Isaac. A few friends, cupcakes, pizza, and blue paw prints all over the place for a subtle “Blue’s Clues” theme. :) On his real birthday, next Tuesday, I’ll bring in cupcakes for his class. And all of that *seems* like it will add up to a birthday well celebrated.

I made these Cheddar Biscuits in a pan and cut them into squares. It was MUCH faster this way, but less appealing for my kids, who think they are about to bite into cake when the taste of cheddar biscuit leaves them pretty disappointed. Oh well. I like them. :)

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