Little One :)

My daughter is a high functioning Autistic in Special Ed. Because she's in Special Ed, parent/teacher conferences are done a bit differently. Instead of just showing up with all the other parents and getting 15 minutes with one teacher, her dad and I are invited to an hour-long session with a whole panel of her educational caregivers. 

It actually went better than expected.

Her father doesn't believe in mental illness. He especially doesn't believe that any child of his could be deficient or mentally ill. He's too perfect for that and he fully expects his child to be perfect and academically sound without continued mental health support.

Fortunately, for my daughter, her father and I share joint legal custody and the school only needs one parent to sign off on what types of services she receives. So, last year at this same meeting, I got her set up with an in-school therapist that she meets with every other day.

I think that because of the marked improvement in her grades since starting therapy, he's finally starting to come around. I asked for continued mental health support for her, and much to my surprise, he actually agreed with me.

So, aside from her still being at a very age-inappropriate reading level, she's a rock star and she's excelling at everything else.

Her panel of experts even agreed with me that she's pretty much an emotional mechanics savant, despite her disability. Most autistic children miss social/emotional queues (which she still does), but also, most autistic children are completely baffled by emotions in general. My daughter is the opposite.

The only other problem that was address is how she never reaches out for academic help if she needs it. She insists on self-teaching and then gets frustrated when she doesn't get anywhere. Her fear of failure is pretty huge. 

I know she gets that from how hard her father is on her. How he expects perfection. It's becoming a major issue and it's really crippling her ability to learn. I'm hoping that he finally sees what an asshole he's been and how it's effected her learning for the worst.

Other than that, everyone agreed with me that she seems bright, happy, well adjusted, and shows the appropriate amount of snark for a teenager.

I'm really proud of her.

Happy Mother Fucking New Year...

The Unicorn and I stayed up until Midnight last night.

We didn't really celebrate. If anything, it was heartbreaking. She goes back to her dad tonight. She goes back to the hell that is his judgment and scrutiny. She goes back to the yelling and spanking. All the mental and physical abuse… all in the name of keeping her disciplined towards a future that only he can see.

Fuck… as little as I've gotten done… my to-do list is nothing but 'recovery' anyway. Spending time with her is always more important, and I don't ever intend to lose sight of that again.

I am going to miss her.

I'm going to miss her a lot.

Fuck you 2017. You're off to one hell of a shitty start.

This morning I fucked off the yoga and poured myself an extra cup of coffee.

Fuck this shit.

Fuck today.

Fuck everything.

I'll get back to saving myself again tomorrow.

A day in the life of thwarting paradox...

My Spawn came with me to see my therapist yesterday.

My Spawn agrees that she and I have the same brain.

My therapist and I agree that she and I have the same brain.

This is the same therapist that I've suggested many a show to. She now trusts my entertainment savviness completely.

Spawn and I told the story of how I now have Spawn addicted to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Originally she was unsure of it. So I made the same deal with her that I did when it was Doctor Who and Supernatural. One episode a day and then she can go back to her anime.

Buffy 1.1 ends in a cliffhanger. She was so annoyed and had me queue up 1.2. By then she was hooked and she finished 1.4 just before bedtime.

It's been nearly a non-stop Buffyfest since then.

My therapist just looks at Spawn, laughs and says "See! That's how she gets you!"

Spawn: "I know, right!?"

Then the three of us proceeded to co-geek the fuck out of Supernatural. It's a wonder we get any therapy in at all, LOL.

There are times I wonder if my therapist and I are cast in someone else's favorite show. That episode would have been killer.

Frances the Ostara Bunny

I'm raising my daughter Pagan.  She's highly spiritual in her own right and says she believes in ALL the gods (which I think is cool as hell).  For being an eleven-year old she is very tolerant of the religious and spiritual beliefs of others.

Now, the thing about ancient paganism as a way of life is that the religion, in addition to it's deep connection to nature, usually boils down to either survival of the self, or survival of the species.  This means a lot of the holidays, rituals and rites of passage usually involve some sort of hunting, agriculture or, well, sex.

So, being a pagan parent I worked at finding something child friendly for my daughter to believe in.  I remembered reading one variation of The Legend of Ostara in a calendar of Goddesses.  I began to tell this version of the story to my daughter.

It became much more than a story.  It also became a parable for radical acceptance.  Ostara became my daughters Goddess and best friend.

Then I got creative, nerdy, and a little pranky.

I convinced my daughter that Ostara's bunny rabbit was named "Frances", which you may know is a (insert word that means opposite of nickname) for "Frank".

As in... Frank... the Bunny.

I'm waiting until she's way older before I let her in on the joke.

Little One (and I) need official "Don't Feed the Yao Guai" T-Shirts

This is the ACTUAL letter I just sent to Bethesda suggesting this:

I was just telling my daughter about the time I had the level 2 animal friend perk.  Anyway... I was running around in a very open area, admiring the way my ass looked in recon power armor, when all the sudden I start getting pinged from laser blasts off in the distance.  Before I could even look around and figure out where the shots were coming from an entire HERD of Yao Guai ran past me and mauled the poor little sentry robot to teeny weeny little itty bitty bits.   

I was so amused. 

It was one of those 'once in a lifetime' gaming moments that can never really be repeated. 

So, after telling my daughter that story, I also told her about how my husband and I used to say "don't feed the Yao Guai" all the time when I was playing Fallout 3, like every day! (and admiring how my ass looked in recon power armor) 

My daughter is an aspiring geeklet.  We're going to be doing YouTube video's where she's the geeky little star.  We're amassing a collection of geeky T-Shirts for her to wear on her show. 

We would LOVE LOVE LOVE an official "Don't Feed the Yao Guai" T-Shirt. 

If you actually make them, would you please do a kid size for her and some adult sizes for me and my husband?  It would go great with the Vault 101 sneakers I just bought. 

Much love,
a loyal fan...
@CompanionAnne

Updaty post is all updaty and shiz...

Um, yeah... I just said that.

Anyway, this is a general update post, but it also has some foreshadowing on my new project.

Up first, HEATH:

In the aftermath of my afternoon in the ER, whatever was up with my kidney's is done and over with.  My INR isn't 100% on track because I skipped several days of my meds trying to get it down from "oh my god, I could bleed out at any second."  I get it tested every Friday, so let's just hope that it all works out.

SKIN:

I don't know if it's hard water or what.  I know it's not allergies or detergent or anything like that.  But my skin is ITCHY!!!  I was scratching so often and so hard that I was leaving long, deep bleeding furrows in my flesh.  The Beloved One had a fear that I would either scratch myself bloody or contract some sort of weird staph infection if I didn't get it looked at.

As a result, I now have a dermatologist prescribed goo that I have to slime myself with regularly.  It's basically mineral oil and white petroleum jelly with a tiny bit of medicine in it to combat the itchy.

So far I don't think the medicine itself is strong enough because I'm still just as itchy if not more.  However, my skin is SO HYDRATED now!  Once the stuff absorbs, my skin feels wonderful.  So, this isn't so bad after all.

WEIGHT GAIN:

During the homeless crisis I gained a lot of weight.  I know I'm only making it worse by using TONS of real sugar in my coffee and basically living a sedentary life.  Don't worry... I'm working on it.  Baby steps.  First things first is tackling that sugar thing.  But, um, UGH!  The artificial stuff tastes SO nasty.  (shudder)

THE ARROW IN MY KNEE:

I blame my friend Brandy,   If it weren't for some random Facebook push about something awesome she did in the Game of Thrones Ascent game, I probably could have gone my whole life without descending back into the world of Facebook games again.  *le sigh*

As it stands, I'm at something like level 98 or so and climbing in the game.  And THEN I decided I needed something to do while my vassles were questing and such and I decided to look into simulation games.  I have no gaming budget, so I have to go with what's free, otherwise I'd just give in to the Beloved One's demands that I stop Facebook gaming and play The Sims.  Nevertheless, I did find a game called City Girl Life, where I play a recent college grad moving to New York City and making a name for herself.  I get to decorate an apartment, work a job and wear cute clothes.  It's mindless fun and I like it.

Now, I did also download a bunch of REAL games.  Free to play, via Steam.  BUT, I can't play any of them because my computer is falling apart.  The case is cracked.  The fan is broken.  It randomly overheats and shuts off.  If I try to game an actual game, the computer can only handle the extra strain on the processor for about twenty-minutes.

Getting a new computer is on the list.  But there are are a lot of other things that are going to have to come first.

SOCIAL MEDIA:

I'm getting good at this social media thing.  I'm getting retweeted by some pretty upscale entities.  I think that's pretty bad ass.  It's also a skill that is going to be seriously important in the upcoming months.

NEW PROJECT:

I'm still going to try to keep up with my project of building resource lists and posting about things that I'm passionate about, but this new project is very Little One-centric.  It's a new BIG THING that will operate with me in the background and allow her to serve as the public face.

Step One is having something to call it.  I've brainstormed a short list of names and I'm going to start a poll on Friday, October 3rd.  This will give the poll a full week to run and then the Little One and are going to announce the winning name/label/title/whatchmacallit on the evening of Friday, October 10th.  Hopefully I'll have the entire project off the ground by her birthday on the 16th.

Without going into too many details.  It's essentially going to be an awareness campaign / non-profit organization.  I hope it will eventually take on a life of it's own and become a movement.

In general it's just really cool to have a BIG project to work on again.  It's also a mommy thing and gives the Little One and I something to do together while introducing her to the value of non-traditional 'work' rolls.  She has a pretty niche brain.  I'm not sure that a normal 9-5 job is what's exactly in the cards for her.  Opening her up to a potential career path at an early age is just kinda bad ass.

#ThisIsWhyIRock

On Unicorns, (fuzzy) Blankies, and the magic of occasionally being Agness in real life:

When I was about my daughters age, I got a fluffy blue unicorn blankie as a gift.  I went out of my ever loven mind.

I THOUGHT the fluffy blue unicorn blankie had been lost during the homeless crisis.  But, the Beloved One magically pulled it out of the bottom of a box one day.  And I went out of my ever loven mind... well actually I didn't... but I was really happy to see it because now that is the family heirloom I can bequeath my daughter with.

Cause you see... my blankie has already kinda been replaced.

~~~

Around the time of my Birthday the Beloved One, the Little One and I were shopping and I saw a giant, fluffy (oh.my.god.it's.so.fluffy), royal blue blankie.  It came home with  me.

About a month ago, the Beloved One and I were shopping and I said "Ooo, what's that?"  Spying a large, grey, fluffy object from halfway across the room.  It turned out to be a giant rhino.  A big, fluffy, pillow pet, giant rhino.  Oh, here's a puppy.  Hey look, I found a bear.

Hey what's that pink one?

OH MY GOD IT'S A GIANT UNICORN!!!

I went out of my ever loven, mother frakken mind.  I HAD TO HAVE IT.

~~~

Now, I watch TV curled up in a love seat nest, leaning on my giant fluffy unicorn pillow, and curled up in my oh so fluffy blue blankie of doom.

The Beloved One has taken to sleeping on the couch because our bed isn't big enough for him, me and the unicorn.

I hug my unicorn, Charlie, daily.