The Cookbook Junkies

I’m having a battle with the damn birds. They keep flying into my patio and kitchen windows. (Previous years they would fly into my living room window – and I could almost live with that)….but on my deck – they are continually flying into a window/door and then relieving themselves on my bbq grill, patio furniture, deck box – etc. For Christ sake, I know if you hit a glass window beak on – it’s gotta hurt – and I could understand how it might scare the shit out of you but come on. Give a white woman a break.

I put the silhouettes of hawks in the window – I hung flapping black garbage bags on rakes by the window – the damn bird sits on the rake and still shits on my stuff. I’m getting really really mad about this. I’m one of those crazy old women screaming in their backyard – “get out of here!”…my neighbors are loving this I’m sure. My two 80 year old neighbors were outside sitting in their backyard – I told them I’d give them a few bucks if they would flap their arms every couple minutes.

On Monday night, I went to see a lecture given by Rick Lavoie, author of It’s So Much Work to be Your Friend as well as other titles. He is a Special Education expert. When it began at 7 p.m. – I was exhausted because Andrew had gotten sick again on Sunday and was home all day with me. He was miserable. I dreaded going to the lecture because Jim and Andrew weren’t “getting along” well and I also was just plain tired and wanted to stay home. The lecture was great and it was the best hour and forty-five minutes I spent in a long time. I left feeling positive but also very sad. The stories of these kids with Asperger’s, autism, ADD etc. being bullied and the stories of their moms justing wanting their kids to have “just one friend” broke my heart.

We have a long road ahead of us and Andrew is worth every single inch of it we crawl.

It’s like having a newborn again… this waking up every hour or so because Andrew is screaming like he’s in a Friday the 13th remake…now he’s taken to walking around the house at 3 a.m. We’re going to have to put in trip wires that will set off alarms so he doesn’t wander out of the house. Andrew has only slept through the night once in the last five weeks.

Last night Jim didn’t get home until 2 a.m. – I had gone to bed at 10:30 – Andrew was screaming MOMMY! at 12:15 or so. Then 20 minutes later when I get to sleep again – he’s screaming out NO! NO!….then I get to sleep again and I hear Jim come in and warm up his dinner etc. Jim comes to bed – I’m in a coma – although I’m awake – I can’t even muster the energy to say, “hello, glad you are still alive”. 15-20 minutes later – Andrew is screaming again. I go in to lay next to him because at this point even though I’m a brain wave away from being Karen Ann Quinlan – I know enough that my poor husband needs to get some sleep. I go lay next to him on the slab of death – his mattress (brand new – top of the line firm) — to me is AWFUL. I’m spread up against the wall like a coat of paint while Andrew is spread all over the bed as comfortable as can be. After two hours of that discomfort – I crawl away begging for Kevorkian to come by and mercy kill me.

An hour later – Andrew is up for the morning – cranky and insisting that he have a cupcake for breakfast and he doesn’t want to go to school.

No wonder people drink. Heavily.