Not so Loserish

We had a funny flash rain storm this afternoon, the kind where the quality of light says that there just has to be a rainbow somewhere. I went outside and looked up in the sky to see if I could find one. Turns out it wasn't up in the sky, it was right in my own backyard. Boy, if that isn't some sort of a metaphor or symbolism or cliche or something, I don't know what is!

Safe

One of Corinne's favorite play themes is of being safe. It started after we watched "A Bug's Life", where she took an instant fascination with the ants running and hiding in their ant hill to escape the evil grasshoppers. She likes to build "homes" for her animals. These can be out of blocks or legos or rocks (if you're lucky) or more difficult to work with mediums such as play-doh or sand or leaves. She is a demanding perfectionist of a foreman with a few non-negotiable requirements for these homes. They must have a roof, they must have no visible openings (i.e. windows) and they must have a door that can be closed completely. Once the home is built to her specifications (which often result in high levels of frustration on the part of everyone involved), she fills the home with her favorite animal friends du jour, declares that "so and so is nice and safe in here now", and squinks* herself silly. Then that's pretty much it for the game. The friends don't come out of the home and no one else is allowed in, no matter how much they knock. That feeling of safety is really all she was going for, and now she has attained that, she can just sit back and revel in it.

Well, the other day Denise, her service coordinator, playgroup aid, and developmental specialist extraordinaire was trying to build upon this theme a bit in the spirit of DIR/ Floortime, and asked Corinne what made her feel safe. Corinne responded enthusiastically and without even a moments hesitation, "Momma!"

Momma makes her feel safe. I mean, does this seem like a fairly abstract concept for a three year old? We all know that it's what is at the root of a young child's love for a parent, but how many kids actually realize this? I don't know, maybe it's just me thinking my kid is the smartest, most clever kid ever. Either way, it made my day.








* If you don't know what a squink is, you must not have met Corinne yet. Some call this type of behavior "posturing", "stimming", "flapping" or "stereotypic behavior". But Corinne, in her infinitely unique way, has her own version of it where she clenches both fists, arms rigid, and makes a strange facial grimace. She does it when she is very stimulated, excited or has accomplished something. She's been doing it since she was a baby, long before any diagnosis, which is when we gave it its innocent name. Squinking is so much a part of who she is that all her providers and doctors now refer to it as squinking also, like it is some sort of official medical term. We're kind of proud of that, in a strange sort of way, like maybe we should patent it.

Anniversary Reflections

This weekend was our 6th wedding anniversary. Dumma and Dumpa were gracious enough to take our little darling for the weekend allowing us to celebrate in our usual way: Take-out sushi, cake and a movie. I know, not all that glamorous, but it's what we've done for the past 6 years and it suits us just fine. We could have gone out for the sushi, but we find that we enjoy it more when we can wear our fat pants, take our time eating (in Pete's case, anyway. He can linger over a few rolls for the entire duration of a movie. He likes to savor. Me, I use my hands to eat sushi and pretty much stuff it in as fast as I can chew), and then collapse on the couch in a food coma. In fact, we even have a unit of measure for how much one has eaten: "sushi-full", as in, "are you just full, or are you sushi full?" This term was coined after eating at an all you can eat sushi place off the strip in Vegas. We had planned to drive for two hours to our next camping destination but instead drove about 10 minutes from the city, pulled over on the side of the road and painfully crawled into the back of Groucho, moaning all the way, to sleep it off like a pride of lions after the kill. It was the fullest I have ever been.

Anyway, also a part of our anniversary tradition is to look through our wedding album while listening to our wedding CD and relive the event. It really was everything I'd always dreamed my wedding would be. We wanted it to be very unique, personalized, and memorable, and I think it was. Here's some things we'll never forget.

• What a perfect spring day it was. Sunny and warm with a slight breeze- the Gods were smiling down on the Loser Family that day.
• Our ceremony in a cemetary. It's not because we're ghoulish or anything. It's just that the town we lived in at the time had this beautiful chapel available for nondenominational weddings of 120 guests or so. And most importantly they allowed Seven on the premises to act in her roll as our flower puppy and ring bearer.
• How amazing our string quartet sounded as they struck up those first few chords, and especially when they played Bach's "Air" as I came down the aisle.
• Pete's brother's reading, a poem that he wrote himself, literally the morning of the wedding. We have a great picture of him at the chapel, pen and paper in hand, putting the final touches on it. It was about Pete's previous reluctance to committ and was unbelievably clever and funny, yet also very sweet.
• Seven's stage fright during the ceremony. She forgot all the training we had done to have her pick up a basket and bring it up the aisle to us. Instead she ran up there in a submissive posture and planted a nice big paw print on the train of my dress as she hid behind us. After the ceremony she threw up (outside, thank God).
• Crying like a baby when presenting a rose to each of our parents (who also cried like babies) to thank them for a job well done.
• Having one of our groomsmen, Mark, help bustle up my dress with his giant contractor-grade hands because my dear sister, the maid of honor, was nowhere to be found.
• mmmm, oyster bar
• Trying to cut the cake for what felt like 20 minutes, not realizing that there was a layer of cardboard between the layers, while appropriately playing Blue Man Group's "Tension". No face smashing.
• Our semi-choreographed first dance to the Beatles "When I'm Sixty Four"
• Fulfilling my father's dream of dancing to "Sunrise, Sunset" from Fiddler on the Roof.
• Pete's hilarious performance during the garter retrieval to the tune of Propellorhead's "Spy Break" (think James Bond action music)
• My cousin Dan's girlfriend, Michele, and my cousin Eric's girlfriend, Mary, practically knocking each other down in their quest to catch the bouquet. Michele won, and was indeed the next one married. Come to think of it, groomsman Mark caught the garter and went on to meet his future wife within a month or two of the wedding.
• Dancing, dancing, dancing. I'm normally not one for dancing, but never have I had so much energy to burn off. And it helps to have all your own handpicked songs, too. We gave our DJ some "must play" songs and then vowed that whenever they came on throughout the evening, we would pause long enough to take it all in and enjoy the moment, 'cause it really does all go by in a blur. My mom also earned the title of "Dancing Queen" that night.
• My poor dad, so disappointed that the bar closed before he got a chance to do his toast (he is a bit of a procrastinator), which was lovely nonetheless.
• Slow dancing alone in a mostly empty room for our last song, Tom Wait's "Little Trip to Heaven", and realizing that we're really, really married.
• Walking back to our house (it was just a couple blocks away) at midnight in wedding gown and tux to pack for the honeymoon, and waving to the cars honking at us.
• Thinking the next day that it was a good idea to eat the peanut butter torte that had sat out all day and night. I spent the first day of my honeymoon (and most of the plane ride there) puking my guts out with food poisoning. And when we got home I actually considered taking it out of the freezer and eating it again, on the off chance that the torte wasn't the culprit.

The best part of all, besides finally marrying my soul mate after six years of friendship and dating, was spending the best day of my life with family and friends. It is as close as I'll ever get to that little jar I mentioned previously, and my version of heaven on earth.