Delay much? "Drafted"

I keep half way writing posts and then not finishing them.
And the little orange "drafted"s are starting to pile up!

Ben was actually home last week. So instead of happily blogging at all hours of the night, I laid there writing things in my head, trying to be quiet while he slept.

Now I'm behind.

So I didn't blog about my awful day, where even Aaron's home therapists said, "Your off your game today!" Instead I bawled to my phone girls. You know that story of Moses' arms being held up...that's how I picture me and my two everyday phone friends, me: arms in the air holding my two cordless phones (always just about dead) and them holding me up. With out them, yup, I'd just...well, fall over.
They definitively held me up yesterday.

Then I also haven't blogged about my killer awesome day today. Tender mercies, fresh perspectives, and just some good ol' tickles and laughs with my kids just making all the difference.

Haven't posted my new found connection with learning to make choices and self-esteem...
Or my contemplations on end of summer funks...
Or my latest enamored-ness with Levi and his emerging personality ...
Or how I almost drowned Aaron with a mouthful of pop at MacDonald's...
Or how much I love my little sister-in-law who's been staying with us...
Or how Benny's always responses to my I love you's with "Me too, beaucoup, beaucoup" and only recently did I explain that  I always think "Buckets and buckets" even though I know that's Or not the translation.


Aw life, with your fullness. (Oh yeah, the post on stress and being busy, obviously written on a day I was too busy to really write it)


So there they all sit "drafted".
I blame blogger they make procrastination way too easy.
Drat you auto save.

Oh well I'll post this. And go to bed. Temple tomorrow and lunch with Ben's mom and sisters, where we'll undoubtedly enjoy good thought provoking conversation.

More thoughts provoked.
More half-way written posts about such provoked thoughts.
Sigh. It's vicious cycle.


Good-night.

Wow that hit me hard...

Mommies READ THIS!

I didn't post this? (Shower for Kamber Rose)

My littlest sister had a baby. 

And she asked her big sister to through a shower. 

This is the result:

I love her middle name (same as her mommy Melanie Rose) and I decided (poor girlie deprived mother of boys that I am) that we were having a rose themed shower.

Our cousin also had a baby boy, Lucus, so it was a double shower for the family coming down from Calgary.

Hers & his

Sleeping Lucus

Levi working the crowd

The mamma

Levi is suppose to wait til his first birthday to get a cupcake...he grabbed one at Aaron's birthday and nabbed another one at eth shower, little stinker.

My mommy and Aunties

Two mammas

My new fav of Evanny

My crafty sister!

OH Krista, how I love you!

Add caption

Just the right height...

Levi's favorite toy lately. 

Who am I to stand in the way of his happiness?

Why I bawled through the new Planet of the Apes

Not just teary little trickles either. 
We're talking face on fire, trying not to audible sob, end of Toy Story 3 kinda cry.
Oh you didn't cry at the end of Toy Story 3? Heartless.


Okay, back to me trying to wipe my soggy face on my husband's shoulder in a movie that I'm pretty sure wasn't meant to be a tear jerker.


First of all, I have friends that can't trust themselves in pet stores. Well, I think if they have chimpanzee I'd be in the same boat. Little orphaned Caesar pretty much got my maternal ball of emotion going, and it just didn't stop! Baby Caesar made me think of Levi (albeit a slightly less chunky version... the ever-eating panda baby in Kungfu 2, was defiantly a more striking resemblance). The young, eager to learn Caesar reminded me of McKye. And the underestimated Caesar, who eventually "rises" reminded me of Aaron.


What can I say. It just had some very strong themes, that resinated with me.


(My husband laughs at me. I ask him how a movie was and his standard answers vary from "Good." to "It was alright.")


Themes like Potential, Acceptance, Belonging, perceptions of and  implications of Intelligence, our desire for security against our need for growth and independence...shall I go on?


Anyways, it was a bawl fest.


Maybe the flood gates at been tapped earlier though. 


THE REAL STORY:


An ed student from the U of L, helping to right a book on kids with Autism in Physical Education, needed a crazy amount of hours observing ASD kids. She had observed a few swim lessons of  Aaron's and just needed a few more, so she came over to the house yesterday morning for a bit. 


Aaron was himself. Running. Jumping. Laughing. Sneaking in random hugs. Eyeing the new pony tail in the room. 


We did a fairly typical morning of therapy: puzzles, letters, songs, signs, redirecting, reinforcing...cheezies, always lots of cheezies. 


During her observation, this young student made one comment that I will never forget. A comment she could never realize just how much it meant. 


She explained how in getting her hours, she had observed probably 30-40 ASD kids.
"I've never seen another kid so full of joy."


Lots of people have commented on Aaron's happiness before. I mean come on, he laughs and squeals, and runs pretty much 98.8% of the time. But I think I always wondered.  
Aaron giggles with delight as he switches on and off alight switch and people make comments like, "Oh if only we could all be as happy with the simple things in life."
And yes those simple things are great, but often because they offer contrast to the complexities of life. Subtle, glorious nuances of human existence that allude innocence, and require experience to truly comprehend. Life.


I worried that Aaron's "happiness" was really an elaborate protection, a series of coping mechanisms shielding him from things he didn't understand and therefore just can't deal with. If he found safety and security in watching his own hand open and close a hundred time. If he just wants something in his life to be within his realm of control.  


If he longs for a window in his cage. Yes, this is why I sat in the theater crying. 


My husband, on the other hand is very convinced of that Aaron in content. Huh. I just realized we probably both very much project our own personality onto Aaron. Ben is a very content guy, very little expectation, roll with the punches guy. I'm much more high-strung, analyse the crap out of everything, feel everything, worry about everything girl (obviously).
I wondered about the degree of Aaron's happiness, his potential and capacity to take in this life with it's meaning-giving contrasts.


I think it was because she used the word Joy. Oh the power of semantics.


And really what happened in that moment?
 The Spirit testified to me that she was right. 


Sure he experiences frustration and challenge with his disability, and sure maybe his sources of happiness can be a little different,  but deep-down and over-all he is happy. 


And for the first time, I really believed it. 


"Caeser is home." 


"Aaron is home." 
Aaron is happy.  
Aaron is where he is suppose to be. 
And we are all experiencing 
exactly what we are meant to. 








Jeepers...ya think a girl could just go to the movies for once and not have some overwhelming, emotional realization!  Gee nope. (You should here my Toy Story 3 rant)

"Gulp" or more commonly known as Relief Society

I love Relief Society.
I love learning, discussing, expounding, sharing and partaking if the gospel with other "holy women".

Love drinking it in. Gulping it down. 

That third hour of church can feel just like that. When your super thirsty on a hot day and you finally get your hands on some water and you just can't get it down fast enough.

The lesson was on Living Water.
And "my cup", my mind, my heart certainly left "runneth o'er".

I had so many thoughts as we sat drench in the Spirit. Living Water is such a perfect analogy.

 Some more thought by another blogger on the women at the well.

I think it's significant that Christ originally gave it to a women, at a well. A women who daily had to go to, draw and carry the water for her family. In the link above, I found it interesting how one women wondered if the women came at mid day to escape ridicule from other women. If she felt misunderstood, judged, unworthy and lonely.

She had need.

And she needed more than physical water.
We all do.

As our Relief Society president gave the lesson she spoke of a severing from the world's darkness and hardness, how the mortality that pulls us can be escaped through Christ. We read form D&C 101:36


for in this world your joy is not full, but in me your joy is full.


Into my mind came an image of a cup. I thought how life in this fallen world takes from us, drains us of energy, of hope. The image became a puncture cup. Leaking. Loosing. 


We pour into our cup. We seek. We read. We pray. We try to fill our cup, but it spills out through the sometimes necessary stresses, trials and disappointments of this life.  Our very vessels can be cracked a broken. 


We have times where we pour enough that the cup fills and we are overwhelmed with joy--looking at a newborn child, feeling connected to the Lord in moments of meditation and revelation, or sitting in a great Relief Society lesson-- "our cups runneth o'er"













And then the daily drain occurs and it's back to faithful filling. 

It was mentioned that perhaps in our day of modren connivence that the metaphor of the life giving spring of water is perhaps lost on us. We think very little about turning on a tap to wash dishes, or filling a tub to bath. 


Then I realized the correlation. We are in a time when our access to "Living Water" is almost as instant as turning on a tap. 


Our scriptures, and words of living prophets once so scarce are now a mouse click a way. We can hold the entire standard works in our  phones, listen to conference addresses instantly over the internet. 


But then, if we lived in a house with running water and choose never to shower we would still be dirty. We could have all the fresh water in the world, but it would do us no good unless we chose to drink.  


I know that Christ is the source of all we need. 
The well spring from which all blessings flow.


He has filled my parched spirit again and again. Whether dried out from the harshness of life or my own neglect, He flows in and willingly restores.