Be A Good Mom

Jett Travolta has died.

beagoodmom — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 03:25:35 +0000

I heard the news and I was sad. Maybe he was a bit too old to call a “kid” but he was someone’s kid, someone’s brother, someone’s friend. I cannot imagine what it would be like to have your child die; I will not imagine it. As I read about his death, I see alot of “side angles” in the story. Some are fine. Yes, he was the son of a celebrity. Yes, he died in an accident. Yes, he was a Scientologist.

But there are some other “angles” that I do not want to hear about. As the parent of a Special Needs child, I knew that people said Jett Travolta had Autism. I knew that many in the Autism community were mad that John Travolta and Kelly Preston seemed to deny it and therefore failed to fulfill their “roles” as celebrity Autism Champions. I knew that many people thought that Scientology and Autism were a dangerous pair and believed that Scientology would either deny Autism existed or treat it in a nonconventional manner which ultimately hurt the individual. I knew that people accused them of hiding Jett because he was prone to seizures, tantrums and embarrassing behavior. Sure, I knew all that. I myself wondered about some of those things. But, in the end, I had to give it a big “Whatever.”

Its their religion, not mine. I don’t really care what, if anything, their Church says about Autism. Whatever.

He’s their son, not mine. I hope they loved him and took good care of him. I am sure they did. Did he have Autism or Kawasaki Syndrome? I don’t know. Whatever.

Should they have told the world he had Autism? Should they have donated alot of money to find a cure? Should they have led the Autism Day Parade? Maybe. But…really…whatever.

Why are people judging John Travolta and Kelly Preston so hard? Maybe he had Autism. Maybe they never publicly said it. But what difference does that make. BAGD and I do not waive the Autism flag. We do not have one of those puzzle piece magnets on the back of our Mazda. I go months without saying the word “Autism”. I can count on one hand the number of times I thought it was important to tell an outsider that Pookie had Autism. Are we wrong? Or are we just living our life for our family. Doing what we can to make Pookie’s life a good one. Clearly, I acknowledge it. (ahhh…yeah…read my blog!) I am not ashamed of it. But I still have no desire to be a spokesperson for Autism. I will ALWAYS be a spokesperson for the Pro-Pookie League of America, but I will never be an Autism champion. Oh, and believe me, I am qualified. But I will never do it. I keep it in the family. And maybe John Travolta does too. There is nothing wrong with that. Get off their backs. Their son died.

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My, have you lost junk? You look great!

beagoodmom — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 22:09:31 +0000

You know how they say anorexia is not about weight at all. Its about control. Feeling that you can control one part of your life when the rest is chaos. So you control it (weight) and then you feel powerful, but its hard to stop because you get addicted to that control feeling?

I have that.

But not with anorexia. Not with food. Not with weight.

I have that with house cleaning.

I cleaned the whole house on New Years Day. I mean, really cleaned it. I went thru the joint top to bottom and cleaned it within an inch of its life. I scrubbed, I organized, I pitched. At the end of the day I had about 7 giant paper lawn and leaf bags full of Goodwill and 5 black garbage bags for the curb. It was a rush! The more I cleaned, the more I wanted to do. When I found one thing for Goodwill, I thought “what about this too!” I was ruthless. But now I have to keep the kids out of the local Goodwill for a few weeks so they don’t wander in and see their old crap for sale.

I opened up containers of AAA batteries and threw away the wrappers, since we keep them in a basket anyway. I changed the Plug-ins. I soaked the toothbrushes in denture cleaner. I bleached the couch slip cover. I dusted behind the TV stand. I put away all my fabric scraps. I pulled out all of Giggle’s too-tiny clothes. I threw away the expired medicines. I scrubbed the legs of the kitchen table. I faced all the books on Geetle and Pookie’s giant book case. I assembled Pookie’s new Geotrack set so that it was not in a heap in the middle of the floor (Giggles got to it when he was not looking). I took the scissors downstairs and the Nukkies upstairs. The library books down and the slippers up. The stuffed animals up and the rainboots down.

I also dusted, swept, wiped, mopped and window washed. It was alot of work, but I feel good about it. Its nice to have your house in some sort of happy place. Not just clean, but organized. I don’t mean “labeled-baskets-in-a-gorgeous-mudroom” organized, (although I do a bit of that too.) I mean just regular organized. Scissors in the pencil cup. Old catalogs thrown away. No flip flops next to the snow boots in the closet. That sort of thing. Makes me happy.

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Random, just getting it out there.

beagoodmom — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 19:04:24 +0000

Wow, my husband posted like 3 posts in the past 12 hours. I guess I had better keep up. But I don’t have a lot to write about today. Let me see what I can squeak out.

1. I agree with BAGD on his recent post. Parenting is hard. People expect you to complain about it. When you don’t complain loud enough they assume you are not parenting enough, or are an idiot. We are neither, we just try to keep a positive attitude. Yes, life here is hard. It truly is. We’ll be happy to tell you about it. But we will try to see the silver lining.

2. Giggles is a genius. Not only is she trying to figure out how to take off her own pants, she threw something away in a garbage can on Sunday! She had a wadded up ball of bread in her fist when we were walking thru the Museum. She waddled over to the garbage can and threw it away before we could stop her (we were not sure what she was throwing away!). She also stands up to the big kids, trying to push them out of her play chair.

3. Geetle has had a little problem with sassiness recently. She complains alot and talks sassy. We are working on it and she is very proud to tell you that she has had no “X” on her chart since Saturday morning.

4. We went to the Science and Industry Museum on Sunday. Pookie wore his earphones for most of the trip. Its amazing how a boy wearing neon yellow ear phones (we bought them at Menards, next to the chain saws) can blend right in. He does not get a response from strangers when he wears them, other than a few people are surprised to see that he still listens to use while he wears them. We even saw a few parents point and discuss among themselves that they would be a useful idea for their child. Earphones for everyone, I say. The museum is way too loud for me too.

5. We had a great Christmas. The kids were very happy. They are still exploring the new things, but slowly we are returning to normal.

6. I am thinking about what kind of birthday party to have for Geetle and Pookie. Big decision. I have not figured it out yet. I have a phone call in to the local McDonalds to see if they will cut me a deal on the price. $9.95 per kid is kind of expensive. Our McDonalds has those play tunnel/tubes, so that would be very popular. And it would be easy to have it there, especially since we are having a family party the next day and I would not have to clean twice!

7. I want to go to DisneyWorld.

8. Today, I am at work. I will not bore you with the details, but someone stole an account from me. Its not right. I told him so, but he said I need to be a team player. Apparently that means my team giving his team a lead on a separate part of an account I was working, then his team stealing the whole account from my team, but its OK because we all belong to the larger team. He is a manager, and my manager is not in today, so I kept my mouth shut. But. He is wrong and I will not go out of my way to help his team again.

Please. I am future posting this, so no one knows when...
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Stashbuster, item #2

beagoodmom — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 03:30:48 +0000

Ok. This might take longer than I thought. I am happy with my new pin cushion, and its a big one. But it used 2 6×6 inch squares and 4 3×5.5 inch rectangles of fabric. More of a “Stash Acknowleger” than a “Stash Buster.” But, still cute. Check out the tutorial by Bari J. here. I am also a fan of her apron tutorial.

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A few pictures….

beagoodmom — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 10:10:17 +0000

Giggles, really wanting to go outside and help BAGD and the big kids shovel the driveway:

Geetle, doing something crazy (check out the naughty baby in the background who is standing on a chair with String Cheese tusks hanging out of her face…forbidden!!!!):

A not-so-successful visit to Santa Claus:

A sort-of-successful picture on a Winter Sleigh:

My Cutey Baby:

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Pookie is a Yellow Belt!

beagoodmom — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 04:40:53 +0000

Pookie passed his Kyuki-Do Yellow Belt test last week. The highlight of a yellow belt test is that you must break a board with a side-step kick. I will let this video speak for itself, mainly. But I will point out a few things:

1. Notice Pookie’s headphones, which he wears during class to cut down the “Kiya!” noises which bother him.
2. Notice BAGD on the mat, offering as little help as is needed.
3. Notice Geetle cheering for Pookie as I film.
4. Notice me choke up and nearly drop the camera when he breaks the board.
5. Notice that he did not cheat. He did not get any help. He did it all by himself.
6. Notice that he rocks.
7. Notice that he knows he rocks, as evidenced by the little happy dance he does just before I almost drop the camera.

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Stashbuster- item 1

beagoodmom — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 03:57:03 +0000

I have an embarassingly large stash of fabric. I am sure there are alot of people who have more, but mine is pretty bad considering that I have only been an active sewist for 1 year. I want to use up my stash. It might be an impossible goal, but I am going to work on it. Here is item #1, made tonite, entirely from stash materials.

Its a Tag Monster, made from an easy tutorial on CraftSchmaft. I took some liberties, partly because I did not get started until 8:30 and I wanted to be done in time for a decent bedtime. I machine stitched the eyes and mouth and did not do much pinning of the ribbon loops. I just held them in place and sewed.

I meant it for Giggles, but I think Geetle will like it too.

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My Dancing Elves- One More Time!

beagoodmom — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 10:03:45 +0000

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

My Dancing Elves Send your own ElfYourself eCards ...
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That Baby looks nothing like you.

beagoodmom — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 16:52:21 +0000

As many of my loyal readers know, Pookie, Geetle and Giggles are not BAGD’s biological children. We used IVF and donor sperm to make ‘em. BAGd talks all about it here and here. Its not a secret, obviously. We did what we had to do to have children. We wanted them and we got them. On a daily basis, its no big deal. But sometimes I can’t help but wonder about the DNA-Dad. I uploaded Giggles’ picture to MyHeritage.com and found out that these celebrities are her most accurate “look-alikes”. Could one of these people be the DNA-Dad?

Interesting. Lets see…………

Yep, she is definately related to James Gandolfino. Watch this……..

MyHeritage: Celebrity Morph - Black and white photographs - Genealogy software

He swears alot, though. I hope she does not grow up to be a swearer.

Pookie, Geetle and Giggles all share the same DNA-Dad. In fact, they were all made on the same day. Giggles just spent 5 years on ice until we thawed and baked her. We don’t know what the DNA-Dad looks like, so I cannot tell you if the kids look more like me than him. My Heritage thinks they look an awful lot like BAGD.

Pookie:

MyHeritage: Family tree - Genealogy - Celeb - Collage - Morph

Giggles:

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Family history - Geneology

Finally, a little fun with Geetle, morphing into Uma Thurman.

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Race Relations- by Pookie

beagoodmom — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 21:24:35 +0000

Pookie loves a PBS show called “Fetch, with Ruff Ruffman.” On this show, Ruff has 6 kids who compete in learning games. The cast changes ocassionally, but the kids seem to stay on for months at a time. The recent class includes:

Harsha

D.J.

and Sammy

Pookie especially loves the part of the show where Ruff introduces each contestant and they jump and wave like they just won the Showcase Showdown.

Last night at his school winter festival, Pookie was echoing the Ruff Ruffman intro quite a bit. Imagine his delight when a “DJ” walked right by! He ran over to “DJ” and smiled and called him “DJ”. Then he had to find a “Harsha.” The little girl he found was not quite a “Harsha” but close. He told her she was “Harsha”. Pookie was so excited. We were on our way out, so he never found a Sammy, but he kept looking.

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