Oh Good Grief!

The kids are home from school today because we live in the south.

And it's supposed to snow.

You know, later today. Around 3:00. When they would be getting out of school...........

Genius.

Anyway - we're still having fun crafting in our pj's and being lazy. We like lazy days.

And my mind is still in that deep place right now. It's getting better, but, as my sister said, "maybe it's good to be sad some; part of working through it."

I think you're dead on, Sister. Dead on.

And apparently this is a working through it kind of week.

And apparently working through it means allowing yourself to feel some of the things you felt at the beginning. Nothing as gut wrenching as the first time you heard your son's name and autism in the same sentence. That was a straight up sledgehammer to the heart and gut. This is more like an annoying itch that won't go away. A daily reminder with a neon sign that flashes across your brain....."he's different. he's different. he's different. he's different. he's different."

And some days you can face it with a "hell yeah he's different!"

And other days it's an "oh yeah. he's different."

This week has just been straight up tough. With our birthday fiasco followed by a Sunday morning class that he spent laying on the floor staring at the wall, followed by major tantruming yesterday during EVERY SINGLE transition.

Rough.

And so while I try to be excited about impending snow, my thoughts are more like, do we bother taking him out in it? It's going to be cold. And wet. And even if he has fun while he's out there, we all know what will happen when we get home and he straight up realizes he's cold and wet. He's going to lose his shiznit and nobody is going to be having any fun.......

(last year's reaction to snow.)

And then I think about the other two. And how he will want to be a part of that even if he hates it. And I think about what a trooper he is. And what troopers they are. And how much this family sacrifices to try and make things right for our youngest. And how much I love him. And them. And how, even if it sucks, we'll still be making memories. And there's always wine later if needed. ;)

So hopefully we'll have more snowy 2014 pictures soon.

Hopefully my mind will stop running through all the what-ifs and go back to rocking it out one day at a time.

Hopefully you're not annoyed that my blog has been more sad than glad lately.

We'll get back to glad. I can feel it. Climbing out of dark places is always work, but there's growth there too. There's realization. There's understanding that life, like snow, is messy, but also, kind of awesome.