Throwback Thursday : California and Vegas Editon

I thought this would be an appropriate throwback since we are currently finalizing our plans to take a summer vacation trip to Las Vegas and California. Having spent many summers and a few of my school years growing up in Huntington Beach, California, I’m really excited to go back. I can’t wait to show my kids the house where we lived, the streets where I walked to school, and the places we would go with my family.

I’m hoping we can afford a trip to Disneyland while we are there. I have some wonderful memories of the happiest place on earth and I want our little family to have some good memories there as well. I think the kids are going to love it, and I won’t even mind riding “It’s A Small World” over and over as long as we can do some of the big rides too. My personal favorite was always the “Pirates of the Caribbean.” I heard it has changed since the last time I rode it; I hope it’s not too different. I’m also looking forward to eating some Churros at Disneyland.

If we can’t afford Disney, I know I wouldn’t mind going to Knott’s Berry Farm. That’s a cheaper venue with just as many fun times to be had. Snoopy can be just as awesome as Mickey, right? I always loved the ghost town area there.

I can’t wait to take the kids to the beach! I’m looking forward to seeing their faces the first time they see the Pacific Ocean. I want them to build sandcastles, dig for sand crabs, walk to the pier for some ice cream, and maybe try some body surfing.

I also can’t wait to see Las Vegas again. I was just a kid the last time I was there, so I have never officially gambled; unless you count spending a couple hundred dollars at the midway at Circus Circus as gambling. It is kind of like throwing money away and you can walk away with a nice teddy bear collection.

I have so many great memories of both places. . . it’ll be good to go back and make new memories with my family.

There and Back Again: A Family Tale

It’s been a while, but families are always about being busy. 

I thought I would give everyone an example of a typical day in our lives. Here we go. . .

5:30 A.M. : My wonderful, loving husband gets up with his alarm and promptly hops in the shower for a quick 15 to 20 minutes. Then he gets dressed, raises both kids from their beds, hands out their early morning meal, and typically has them dressed all before I’m even batting an eyelid. Ryan often deals with a feisty, Gabrielle, trying to gently push her to eat her pop-tart/cereal, get dressed, or even go potty. We struggle with her most in the mornings, it takes the smallest deviation to set her off into a full-on “terrible two year old meltdown”. For instance: we run out of her preferred cereal or flavor of pop-tart, or she all of a sudden no longer likes that cereal or flavor of pop-tart. Sometimes the meltdowns are fashion and accessory related: I don’t want to wear pants, I wanted to wear a dress, I don’t like tights, I already have socks, or mommy already picked out something for me. Even a task as simple as “now, go find your shoes/jacket/backpack” can lead to an emotional breakdown if she’s not in the mood to look for them. Believe me, this struggle is real for parents of a child on the spectrum. I think he deserves some sort of an award for that right there.

6:20 A.M. : Ryan wakes me. Sadly, is the absolute latest I can ever sleep in on a weekday. I throw on some pants and a t-shirt, grab a granola bar, and we head out the door.

6:40 A.M. : We pile into the car. Usually, there is a personal struggle between Gabrielle and her seat belt. The seat belt often wins and we have to listen to a meltdown about how she simply can’t do it. At which point, Ryan, exits the vehicle and assists Gabby with her seat belt. If we are lucky, we make the long drive to Ryan’s job without any further meltdowns. Making it without meltdowns is very rare and we usually see a meltdown or two over things like: car territory disputes (my kids fighting over the vast space in the back seat of the car), siblings talking (Gabby gets angry with Dylan if she doesn’t agree with things he says), siblings looking at each other the wrong way (there are mornings where Dylan just looks at Gabby in a way she finds offensive).

7:15 A.M. : We drop Ryan off at his school. Ryan says his goodbyes as he prepares to plunge into a day of dealing with unruly, unpredictable teenagers. Things can be devastating for us if he forgets to say goodbye to Gabby. She has also been known to request hugs and kisses through the car window, and if this doesn’t happen then we often have a critical meltdown.

7:25 A.M. : Back to the freeway. This is probably the worst time for me personally because I’m alone in the car dealing with rush hour traffic conditions and two occasionally arguing children. It sucks to be without Ryan as my backup because I simply can’t whip around and correct the disputes between my kids. Gabby has been known to get physical over her disagreements with her brother. Sometimes I feel so bad for Dylan when he’s trapped in a car sitting next to an exploding Gabby. All I can do is threaten time-outs or toys/activities being taken away; threats that aren’t instant usually don’t mean anything to a 6 year old.

7:50 A.M. : Drop Dylan and Gabby off at school.

8:00 A.M. : Now the kids will go to class and eat their “Second Breakfast” (our school system offers a free breakfast to students, so 2 hours after eating breakfast at home they get to eat another one), and I will head home. Ah, finally my morning running is complete! I can now be at peace. I drive home, sit down to relax and oh wait. . . there is still so much stuff to do. I have dishes, laundry, bathrooms to clean, floors to vacuum, kitchen surfaces to clean, trash to take out, and random knickknacks to put away! “Well, this crap isn’t going to clean itself”, I guess I’ll pick an activity and get to it. When I’m alone is honestly the only time I can clean, free of distraction and chaos. I hate trying to clean a house when everyone is running around doing their own thing. I’m like, “Yeah, destroy the area I’ve just spent the last half hour picking up, thanks for that”. At least if I clean while everyone is away, I’ll get sometime to enjoy the house looking nice.

12:30 P.M. : Lunchtime. I use this time to a.) eat and b.) catch up on one of my favorite shows. This is generally my “ME TIME”, a time of peace, stuffing my face, and Downton Abbey or whatever.

2:00 P.M. : What! How is it 2:00 already!! What happened to my “ME TIME”, it can’t be gone that fast. Time to get up and fix the kids their after school snack. No idea why, but the school system feeds my kid at like 10:30 in the morning. Therefore, when they come home it’s like they could eat a whole meal. I try and stick with healthy snacks so he doesn’t ruin dinner. Lucky for me, the kids love eating fruits, vegetables, cinnamon/jelly toast, yogurt, and cheese sticks.

2:40 P.M. : Pick the kids up from school. Sometimes we get a meltdown or two if I ask the kids about their day. If Gabby has not had a good day at school she will become very angry or aggressive and may take it out on her brother if he had a good day. So I have learned to only ask about the school day if both kids appear to be in high spirits when they get in the car.

3:15 P.M. : After snacks are eaten, one kid gets to watch a show while the other kid does their homework. I don’t know why, but it seems to work out best this way. It’s just less fuss if I can give 100% of my help/attention to only 1 kid. Dylan’s homework can be stressful, especially when there is reading involved. He sometimes gets so frustrated with his poor reading ability that he will break down in tears. We try to encourage him to sound out the words and keep going but the pressure can get to be too much for him. This is typically the only time we see whinny/upset Dylan. Most of the time he is a pretty laid back and relaxed kid. After homework and a show, the kids either play outside if it’s nice and sunny, or they play in their rooms, or the quiet room to look at books or color/draw pictures. I usually try to check on the kids outside or in their room every 20 minutes or so. Gabby has “PICA”, a psychological condition where she will literally eat anything. I mean anything from rubber balls, erasers, crayons, styrofoam, blankets, rocks, sand, grass, flowers, soap, etc. In fact, you name it, Gabrielle has probably tried to eat it at some point. We think it’s part of her autism, but we aren’t sure and the doctors haven’t confirmed that PICA is part of the spectrum disorders.

5:00 P.M. : Prep and cook dinner. Sometimes I will also be giving the kids a bath at this time, especially on days when Gabby plays outside and gets herself muddy. She likes to dig holes his our yard; a habit Ryan and I would like to break her of; especially considering that the previous owners of our home told us they have a dog buried somewhere in the back yard.

5:30/6:00 P.M. : Serve the kids dinner. They have about 30 minutes to eat before we have to leave to pick up Ryan.

6:30 P.M. : On the road again. We hustle to get socks, shoes, and jackets back on in order to jump into the car and leave to pick up Ryan. Sometimes this activity is absolute chaos as Gabby and/or Dylan doesn’t want to leave the house; naturally they’d rather spend more after school and before bedtime, playing.The rush of getting the kids ready to head out immediately after dinner can sometimes lead to the kids skipping a step like actually putting on the socks and shoes. We’ve stopped at a store before after picking Ryan up only to realize that one kid didn’t put shoes on before jumping in the car.

7:00 P.M. : Get Ryan. We now have Ryan and are able to head back to the freeway and go home. This is often the only time of day I get a chance to talk to my husband about how his day went/how my day went. We spend much of this conversation time being interrupted by our kids and sometimes Gabby will interject her own opinion into our conversations. She thinks she knows best, and her opinion is never wrong. Challenge something she believes is fact, and it could lead to a meltdown. For example: we once had a heated debate over what time of day the kids wake up to eat breakfast. I was talking on the phone to my grandmother and Gabby overheard me telling her that Ryan gets the kids up at 6:00 in the morning to eat breakfast. Gabby immediately interjected with “No, Ryan wakes us up at 6:00 at night”. I corrected her a few times before I realized that she considers anytime where the sky is still dark to be night time. We laughed at her observation and set her straight on the truth, but she never gave up on her own point of view. She still wants to believe that Ryan wakes her up at 6:00 at night.

7:30 P.M. : Home at last. We get home and immediately start getting the kids ready for bed. They brush their teeth and go to the bathroom. Ryan reads a bedtime story from whatever book they are working on, at the moment it’s Aesop’s Fables.

8:00 P.M. : Adult time begins. After the kids are tucked away in bed Ryan and I get to re-heat and eat dinner, and spend some quality time together. We usually end up watching a show like Top Gear UK, Star Trek TNG, Heroes, Dr. Who, The Walking Dead, or Hannibal.

10:30 P.M. : Bedtime. We usually get to head to bed together. However, since Ryan teaches sometimes he has some grading or planning to do at the end of the day for an extra hour or so.

11:30 P.M. : Sleep. . .Zzzzzz. . . sleep now, rest while you can. Tomorrow the chaotic journey begins all over again.

A Bit About Me

I am Shannon. I just recently hit the big 3-0 milestone, the dirty 30. I am married to an early college professor, and we have two beautiful children together. I am a history fanatic, the family historian, the family photographer, and the family chauffeur. I’m also a self proclaimed nerd who loves BBC shows, comic book movies, Tolkien, Star Wars, The Walking Dead, Star Trek, and anything Science Fiction related.

I met my husband, Ryan, in 2005 but didn’t get an opportunity to date him until 2012. We were married on my sister’s birthday October 25, 2014. We love to be giant nerds. We enjoy cooking together, discussing life and hypothetical topics, discussing zombie apocalypse scenarios, watching British Television, watching documentaries, and going to the cinema. He is mostly blind because he was born with a genetic condition called retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative eye disease. Despite this, he teaches English Composition and Philosophy to high school students at a college prep school. Since he has only a 13% window of vision I have to drive us everywhere. Every weekday morning, I get up and drive him with our two children in tow to the school where he works; it’s about an hour drive there and back.

My son, Dylan, is a typical boy: he loves video games, superheroes, Legos, TMNT, Dr. Who, Star Wars, Batman, playing music on his guitar or his piano, and teasing his little sister. He is our family’s clown, always trying to make everyone laugh by acting goofy. He’s already a nerd and that makes Ryan and me so proud! He is also one of the most caring and polite little boys ever; I always get many compliments on how well behaved he is. If I could only get him to do some homework every once and a while, he’d be an absolute perfect child. And I may be biased but he is also super handsome! I mean, I think we’ll be in serious trouble when the teenage years get here. We recently discovered that he may have dyslexia and are in the process of having him tested. We are currently working to have him held back in 1st grade since we are just now learning that he has problems with his reading, comprehension, and difficulty with his writing. As parents, we just want to make sure he gets the support he needs to master all of the skills needed to pass 1st grade.

My daughter, Gabrielle, is. . . well she is a drama queen. She loves to be bossy, is incredibly stubborn, and beats up her older brother. We found out recently that she has high functioning autism/Asperger’s. We have known that she was “different” since she was about 9 months old. She simply wasn’t meeting the milestones we thought she should be meeting. She had very delayed speech: she was 3 years old before she could call me mommy, and she would just whine or cry to address her needs. She was a late walker, was often clumsy on her feet, and had other delayed motor skills. At the advice of a fellow mom, we took her to the school system to be tested. They immediately wrote her an IEP (Individual Education Plan) and enrolled her in Developmental Preschool. It took us two additional years to get the pediatrician to finally diagnose her as being on the autism spectrum. Apparently high functioning autism is pretty hard to diagnose. She is super intelligent, so there is nothing delayed mentally, but she has a really hard time dealing with and understanding other people. We are reading lots of books and learning how to adjust our parenting to accommodate all of her behavior issues. It’s been really tough and stressful, but I’ve discovered that many of her autism behaviors make her really special and unique compared to other kids. I don’t know anyone else who has a kid so obsessed with Frozen that they memorize all the songs in other languages or who can draw such detailed artistic drawings (all of Elsa, of course)! It’s sometimes difficult to understand many of her behaviors and it’s even more difficult to explain to people who don’t see her everyday that she acts the way she does because she is on the spectrum. Every day with Gabby is a new day, filled with new challenges. Sometimes we get things right and have zero meltdowns and sometimes we have days with many explosions of emotions. On the bad days I tell myself, “we just have to take a deep breath, count to ten, and move forward.”

Our lives are super busy keeping up with behavioral therapy, transporting people here and there, and still finding time to spend as a family on the weekends. Sometimes I just want a break from all the chaos that goes on in our day to day lives. However, I am beginning to accept the fact that my life is probably always going to feel like living in a jungle.