Tuesday's Thoughts

I was thinking today about many things, but it occurred to me that I try really hard to NOT think about autism. How exactly have I mastered that? I don't even want to hear the word AUTISM in my vocabulary. Autism has drained the life out of me. I feel all used up and dried up like a raisin. I don't have any words of wisdom to offer anyone these days. I just pretend I don't know anything about it. I wonder how many other autism moms are with me in this boat?

After all, I pretty much devoted 5 solid years to learning, reading, researching, advocating, campaigning, championing, educating and silently suffering over autism. What's left? When it all comes down to it, no one is really listening. People listen, but then don't make the changes necessary in order for their kids to be safe out of convenience for themselves. Have I even made a difference to ONE person in this world? Did I really change anything? Does anyone even care that my child is vaccine damaged and was blessed with autism as a result of it? I am just tired. I have ran out of gas. Nothing really matters to me. I've lost my game, lost my drive, lost my passion for sharing our story. St.Theresa, as the song goes, I have abandoned you. I've jumped ship, flew the coop, went over the hill and I am left wandering around the wilderness trying to find a way back home to the comfort and familiarity of things that I love and am passionate about. How does one find their way home? Seeking advice...

Notice above that I said Ivy was blessed with autism? I do see it as a blessing. For without that fateful diagnosis, I wouldn't know HALF or even THREE QUARTERS of the stuff I know now. I am just so grateful for the knowledge I have gained in my research and discovery during the past seven years. It's been a blessing to meet and know all of those wonderful people out there who share my journey with me every day. It opened my eyes widely to the corruption going on in America. I learned that our very own government along with the drug pharmaceutical companies would go to great and illegal lengths to hide studies and documentations to give the American public a false sense of the truth. I have learned that my country and most of the people in it do not care that my child was harmed as a result of the trust I placed in the vaccine program. I have learned that your body is a temple for sure and if you flood it with toxins and chemicals laced in our foods and drink, that we as a people become very sick and can't function to the best of our ability. I have learned that by reducing the exposure of chemicals, hormones, antibiotics and pesticides in the foods I give my kids that I am keeping them healthy and not placing them into a place of premature puberty where their bodies don't belong with their minds. I have learned to not misuse an antibiotic and let our bodies build up their own antibodies and immunity on it's own so that when we get sick, we can Heal Thyself. I have learned that opinions are like noses...everyone's got one AND just because I whole heartedly believe my child was vaccine damaged, there are millions of people who don't buy into the theory that it could be possible for vaccines to cause autism...and while I respectfully would agree to disagree on that point, you won't find me calling those people who do not share my point of view, uneducated or stupid. I would however say that I feel sorry for them that they were unable to open their mind to the possibility. I often find that those who have resisted me the most and made the most horrific comments to me about how irresponsible I am for having spread such ugly lies about vaccines...are the very ones who end up down the road with a child that has "issues" and seek me out for advice. I don't look at those people and say, "I told you so"...I say, "welcome to the club, sit down and pull up a seat and let's get started, what can I do for you?"

Most of all I have learned how to open my heart to people I don't even know, to share in their sorrow and joy and triumphs as we walk this road together. I don't know where I belong anymore in the autism world and I don't know where I am going to, but I sure know where I have been. <3

Mondays Child

I love the old Mother Goose Nursery Rhyme Poem called Monday's Child:

Mondays Child

Mondays child is fair of face,
Tuesdays child is full of grace,
Wednesdays child is full of woe,
Thursdays child has far to go,
Fridays child is loving and giving,
Saturdays child works hard for his living,
And the child that is born on the Sabbath day
Is bonny and blithe, and good and gay.

I have read this poem a thousand times over the years since I was a little girl myself. I never really paid it no mind until today when I read again for the one thousand and first time. I decided to dig a little deeper into the meaning of the lines. I looked up my date of birth and then my girls and here is where we stand:

Me: Tuesdays Child is full of grace

Jade: Wednesdays child is full of woe

Ivy: Thursdays child has far to go

WOW! Did you read that? If not please reread it once more for me! Now I am not so sure about the full of grace for me....but the other two are quite frankly spot on! Unbelievably so!!

When I think of Jade, I do think of woe. She is always so dramatic and life is just so unfair to her. She some days feels like there is so much unjustness in her life that she is the sole bearer of this cross. Of course I just chalk it up to prepubescent HORMONES, but this is helpful in knowing that its her destiny to feel "woebegone" as a general rule. I have to laugh because my nick name for her is "Negative Nelly"...hahaha!

When I think of Ivy, I think how far she has to go yet. I can't help to think of how far she has already come, so her journey is not over so to speak. She was dealt a crappy hand in life, but along the way she has overcome and triumphed like a true champion and her load will be long and there will never be a full recovery, but she can hopefully learn to adjust to life and her surroundings enough to cope on a day to day basis and no one will be the wiser to her "issues" except those that know and love her.

So what's your day of the week and how does it fit into the description of yourself? Drop me a line and let me know!

Jenny Video

My favorite part of the Rally, view this after you have read the update.

Happy Birthday Ivy Doodle

That 's been Ivy's nickname since she was born. Well that and a plethora of other names like: Ivy Doo, Ivy B the Bumble Bee, Ivy Dozer, Dozer, Doo, Poison Ivy, Ive, Ivester, Vee, Punkin, Sissy Sue ....oh heck I could go on forever I guess. I never call my kids by their real names hardly it seems.

Well, today my little ray of sunshine is SEVEN years old. I can't believe it. It's just seems like she isn't my baby anymore, even though she will always be my baby due to birth order. I wish I could report that today was all roses and sunshine, but it wasn't. What started out to be the most normal birthday ever, turned very ugly about 4:00 pm today and boy did it ever get ugly.

We started the day off with some birthday pictures outside on this beautiful day. Took Ivy to the store to spend her birthday money and she decided she wanted a new bike. She has always had a Jade hand-me-down...so what the heck. With her birthday money, she was able to buy a new bike from WalMart for $60.00 woo hoo!!! It's so cute.

Next, we went to a Popsicle party at her teachers house for end of the year. All her classmates were there, so we took cupcakes to the party and sang Happy Birthday to her there. She did really well there. I let her have two cupcakes and that is probably where the bridge collapsed, but it was her BIRTHDAY darn it and I just wanted her to have a normal birthday like all the other kids have. I knew there would be hell to pay later and I was right.

We got home and that is where the trouble began. She just started crying and throwing a fit and I was just having such a hard time trying to get her calmed down. She was really, really worked up. I guess it was the wheat and AND sugar combo that sent her over the edge. She had about 5 0r 6 Popsicles and that stuff is nothing but frozen fructose corn syrup. Ivy and FCS don't blend well together. Add in the crap from the cupcakes and you have got yourself one really angry little girl. She was yelling at me, I am losing my autism and you caused it!!! I think she was trying to say that her autism was flaring up...is that possible?? I am not sure what else she meant by that. She knows when she is on wheat overload and it makes her very disagreeable and she does not like feeling that way and she is always very remorseful for her bad behavior, but can't seem to control the rage while on a wheat high.

It's my fault for letting her have all that stuff, but I just wanted for things to seem normal for her day. I ended up losing my patience with her and went off to pout in the bedroom and fell asleep and took a little nap. When I woke up 2 hours later, she did seem better, but was still pretty grouchy. Mommy's bad Ivy. I am the parent and I should have not let you had all the stuff at the party. Note to self: next year monitor what goes into her mouth a LOT closer.

Anyway, I prefer to remember her excitement from this morning about it being her day and I will forget and forgive the rest of the day. Happy Birthday to my sweet little Ivy. I love you.

Remembering VERA MAE

Vera....if I could use one word to describe her it would be another "V" word: VIVACIOUS.

Vera is my grandma. My beloved grandma. I miss her so much. The anniversary of her passing came not too long ago, it's been a year since she left us quietly in her sleep. I feel her presence around me more now than ever. Her birthday is coming up very soon and I think that just breathes live back into her memory even more.

My grandma believed in pennies from heaven and she never passed up a penny she saw on the ground. That was her thing, she collected pennies from Heaven. Well, that and BINGO! I never seen a person more crazy about bingo and luckier than she was at winning it. In fact, she was still playing bingo regularly right up until she died. She would play 6 cards, never miss a number and tell you which numbers you had missed on yours sitting beside her.

She was 92 when she died and she was a real looker. She had gorgeous legs made for dancing and she loved to dance and did it often. She went faithfully for 50 years and had her hair "done" every week at the beauty shop. She painted both her fingernails and toenails red and wore red lipstick. She never left the house without her make-up on and she was always dressed to the nines. She loved three things in life: earrings, shoes and Danielle Steele books. She collected ALL of them. The woman literally had a shoe collection that would shame Imelda Marcos, she coveted as many pairs of earrings and she had every book ever written by Danielle Steele.

She was the life of the party and people loved to laugh with and at her. She was the best grandma ever. She had a lot of grandchildren and even more great grandchildren and a few great, great children when she passed, but she had this unique way of making you feel as if you were the one and only grandchild she ever had. She could spoil you like no other. She never missed an opportunity to tell me she loved me or how "purdy" she thought I was. Ever. She told me often and I believed her with all my heart.

When I had my first miscarriage, she sent me a card with a lovely letter inside telling me that she understood my heartache and then went on to tell me about the little girl she had that died of unknown causes when she was 9 mths old. How I had lived to be 34 and never knew that about my own Grandma was unbelievable. I felt even more closer to her at the moment and when I had my second miscarriage, she called me on the phone and we just cried together. No words were needed.

When Ivy was diagnosed with autism, she called me one day to tell me that she was thinking of me and she missed not hearing from me as often, but she knew that I had my hands full and that she wasn't holding it against me. She told me that she understood how hard my life was at the time, but she was sure God chose the right Mommy for Ivy, because she knew how strong I was and how much of a fighter I could be if I needed to be. I seized the moment then and told her how grateful I felt to be her granddaughter and how much I loved her and I was so sorry for not calling more often. I told her that I never not once growing up ever felt I was not loved by her. I never felt that any of my cousin's were loved more than me either, that she had always made me feel so special over the years. I felt like I had to say it, because I knew she was getting older and I felt like I wanted her to know how grateful I was for her love and her friendship. To this day, I am so glad I had the chance to say how I felt to her.

So anyway, about those pennies....we have been trying so hard to raise money for DC, right? Well, starting the day of the anniversary of her passing, I began finding pennies. Weird, right? Yeah, it is, but I just think it's my Grandma's way of telling me she has arrived and she is here for me and even from heaven, she is helping me get to DC. To date, I have found exactly 16 cents and every one of those will be spent towards the trip.

I miss her and I just had to write about her and how I marvel at her presence in my life right now. She was that way in real life and she is that way in the after life. So, here's to you, my beautiful Vera Mae......



This is one of favorite picture's of the girls and My Grandma. This was right after Ivy's 1st birthday and Ivy fell in the bathtub the night before her BD party and split open her eye and she had 5 stitches in the crease of her eyelid on her right eye and then the next week, Jade ran straight into a door jam and split open her forehead...hers was super glued together in ER.
I laugh at this picture with my 2 accident prone girls! Ivy with a black eye and stitches and Jade with her big knot, bruise and glued together forehead.

Jenny McCarthy is MY HERO!!!

Not only is she hot and shares a great name with me (McCarthy is my maiden name)...she is a mom like me that loves her child with autism. I watched with baited breath today as she appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show promoting her new book, LOUDER THAN WORDS.

She is awesome and she said it. She said it on national television. She said she thought her sons autism was caused from his vaccines. I love her for saying that. Someone famous is saying what I have been saying for 3 long years. She made me feel validated somehow that I am NOT crazy.

Jenny McCarthy, I love you. Thank you for being the voice to all the moms who love their sick kids so much. We just want them to get better you know. We just want them to be well and be normal and is that so bad?

I love how she starts her book by saying, if your child is diagnosed with cancer, people flock around and pray for you and make you dinner and rally around you. If your child is diagnosed with autism, people look the other way and avoid you at the grocery store. They look the other WAY!. Go back and read that again: They look the other way. They whisper under their breath and say mean things about you like, "why can't she make that kid behave?" or "what is WRONG with that child???" I know this to be true for I have experienced it first hand many, many times while on trips to the store or in a restaurant.

SO, today is my Anniversary and my hubby didn't even get me a friggin card. He called me this morning and left me a message after he left for work, b/c he never said anything to me before he left. I didn't get the message until after work at around 3:30pm. I can't believe he didn't even get me a card.

They said on Oprah today that 80% of all marriages with ASD kids end in divorce. I understand that statement completely. I wonder sometimes how we have managed to hang on for these past 4 years (we have been married for 8), especially when my husband can't even remember to go buy me a friggin card. Nice, huh? No wonder I have stress in my life.

So, tomorrow I have the day off work and I will be volunteering at the kids' school all day. I will be having a special talk with Ivy's class about her autism while I am there at the school. Can't wait!

peace people!