The Tale of The Tic-Tac

I love my sister. She's legit.
She's not perfect but she doesn't pretend with me. I love that.

And I told her she needs to write this story down but we all know she won't, so I'm going to write it for her. Because it needs to be recorded. It just does.

Imagine the scene:

A young, beautiful mom at grocery store check-out line with a cart full of groceries and two toddler girls (most likely impeccably dressed because Sister can dress herself and her kids like every day is a fashion show and the aisles of the grocery store are the runway) tagging along. I go to the store looking like a homeless person, but not my sister. She always looks like she stepped out of a magazine.  

So they've done all their shopping and they get to the check out line and my sweet, and a wee bit stubborn niece, the 4 year old decides she wants tic-tacs. Sister says no, they don't need tic-tacs.

Sweet and Stubborn 4 year old says a little bit louder,
"I WANT THE CANDY!"

Sister again says "NO! We don't need mints!" even though she's already wishing she had just bought the freaking tic-tacs.

Man at counter gives Sister the stink-eye, takes pity on the 4 year old and offers her one of his own personal mints, which she gladly accepts and devours.

Sister thinks well thanks for undermining me, but oh well, at least everyone is happy......Aunt Rachel thinks we may need to have a talk with Sweet and Stubborn Niece about taking candy from strangers.......

Anyway, 4 year old finishes the mint and immediately asks again to buy the tic tacs because she likes them better than the gifted mint from the kind man.

Sister (who is obviously quite annoyed and embarrassed at this point) again, says no.

4 year old decides paying for things you want is old school anyways and starts stuffing tic tac containers in her dress while screaming that she wants the candy.

Sister is now beyond pissed and starts grabbing at tic tacs and trying to remove them from 4 year old's dress, all while wondering how 4 year old will look in an orange jump suit one day when she's in prison?

The full on battle for the tic-tacs ensue into a game of tug of war that ends with tic tacs spilling all over the floor of the store. Sister now has to pay for the stolen, spilled tic tacs that she didn't want to buy in the first place.  (And she probably also has to pay for the wine that I can only assume she has opened and is guzzling at this point.......ha ha, just kidding Mom. Sort of.)

She cleans up the floor, finishes paying for groceries and yanks her sobbing 4 year old out of the store.

They get to the car (and this is my absolutely, hands down, most favorite part of the story) and Sister does the only mature thing left to do: She starts eating tic-tacs and giving tic tacs to the 2 year old to eat and talking about how yummy the tic-tacs are in front of the sobbing 4 year old who (for obvious reasons) cannot have any tic-tacs.  She tells the 4 year old these are the best tic-tacs in the history of tic-tacs. Oh yes she does. Because if you can't beat em, you sure as hell can join them!

4 year old screams the whole way home.

2 Year old delights in her tic-tac snack the whole way home.

Sister calls me and laments that she's worried something is terribly wrong with 4 year old?

I tell her to start drinking wine and remind her that she once stole an entire stack of magazines from the grocery store that Mom wouldn't buy for her. 

Sister doesn't remember her thievery.

I remember it well because Brother and I had to return the stolen merchandise.

We hang up and I get on Amazon and send Sister a box of tic-tacs because that's how we roll.

THE END.

Bless her little heart........

Blank Space

I keep coming back to this space,
to this teeny tiny corner of the internet that I call my own,
and I watch the cursor blink and blink and blink,
and nothing.

Literally. For two weeks, I've just stared.
Blink. blink. blink. blink.

I need this space.
I love love love to write, but I struggle because sometimes I don't love love love to share.

Or I share, but then I feel guilty when I share only the good, like I'm holding up a reflection of our lives that is true, but not all the way true.

Or I share the hard stuff and then I feel guilty when I share only the hard stuff, because it's not all hard stuff either.

So basically, I always feel guilty, so then I type and erase and rewrite and erase and then I say screw it all, I need to be studying anyways, and I turn off the cursor and go back to my sometimes good, sometimes really hard life.

And today started with screaming and ended with screaming and had nothing but screaming in between. This  picture was our day. This was actually a different day when I was literally filming a melt down to show his behaviors to a doctor, but this was also today.

And you know what?

This pic actually was today.

This was screaming at the dinner table because his mouth hurt.

Because on top of autism, we still have the chronic disease that gives us nasty rashes no matter what we eat and believe me, I can read ingredients better than Superman can fly, and there was nothing on his plate that should have caused that reaction. Not one damn thing.

And sometimes I feel so alone in this battle.

So horribly alone because it NEVER goes away. 

And then my sister-in-law randomly throws me a lifeline. A reminder that I'm not alone. A reminder that she loves me and she's trying to understand what I go through.

And that reminder came in the form of this article she sent.

And this article nailed it on the freaking head.

http://nottheformerthings.com/2014/11/05/traumatic-stress-and-autism-mommas/

And while parts of this article make me terribly sad, parts of this article make me very hopeful. Because I am not alone in this. There are other moms out there, right now, struggling with the things I struggle with. There are other moms worrying and fretting and wondering what tomorrow will be like? There are other tired-to-the-bone, literally living on coffee mama's, and if they can do it, I can do it too.

We can do it together.

Even if we can't sit in a coffee shop and hash this shit out in real life, (because who has time for that right now) we can read each other's blogs and connect on facebook and rally for each other. We can pray for each other like we've never prayed before.

And we can remember that we have an AWESOME sister-in-law who know our lives are hard and sends us a lifeline at the exact moment we need one.

And speaking of living on coffee, I left school and headed to work the other day and I treated myself to a Starbucks along the way........

I don't know about you guys,

but this cup offends the crap out of me.

Hearts and Love?! 

Ugh.

Come on Starbucks, pull it together.

;)