randomly chaotic and frequently mundane

Gage was playing with a magnadoodle last night and started writing words.  I saw jet, met, pop, pig, fat, hat… it was AWESOME.  He draws faces in the letters, but it’s a start.  I’ve heard stories of Autistic children who’ve never communicated verbally or with sign or PECS starting to write or type messages to people.  Maybe writing will be Gage’s medium.  I can certainly live with that.  He HAS communicated verbally though, just not a whole lot.  Since he’s been in this school though, he’s done more repeating.  Not just a single word from a sentence, entire sentences.  I find it encouraging.  I’m thinking I might try taking Gage to Friendly’s this weekend, just the two of us.  I think it’d be cool, and I want to see how he does.  I can always get the food to go if it doesn’t go well.

I’m going to the Red Cross auto sales place tomorrow to look at cars.  Here’s hoping I’ll find something that I can afford that is in good enough condition.  My requirements are small.  It must run, have all of the necessary parts, seatbelts are required.  Heat is also required.  It also must be able to pass inspection.

I love to keep a few good, unique gift ideas in my back pocket for when I have a really hard person to buy for, or when someone asks for a gift idea for their wife’s brother-in-law, that neither of them really knows. Things like the Flying Alarm Clock at Vat19.com, for example. I mean, even if it was never used by the recipient, who wouldn’t at least get a good laugh out of something like that? You know everyone you showed that to would ask for a demonstration. It would, of course, lead to other people getting one if they seemed particularly amused or interested in it. Or you could be bold and get one to actually use.

the kids had McDonalds today, courtesy of Grammy.  It was really cool, especially since Gage took the McNuggets out of his box and ate all 4 of them before he touched his fries.  Usually he eats the fries and it takes some convincing to get him to eat more than a McNugget and a half.  Maybe I should invest in some chicken nuggets — he might actually eat them.  I might also attempt some fish nuggets, might get lucky or something.

Work was good today.  I had an amusing moment… one of the songs playing over the intercom was “Mr. Spaceman” by the Byrds.  I was dancing a bit and a customer commented that I couldn’t know the song… so I started to sing along.  She was surprised.  What can I say, I love all kinds of music, even if it’s from many years before I was born.  Just like the people who thought I was weird because I was singing along to Elvis.  Elvis is awesome… he’s the man… or was.  He still kicks serious ass, musically speaking.

Gage doesn’t have school tomorrow, so I’m home.  Maybe I’ll break out the ceramic eggs for painting.  He did some of the wooden shapes that Rob gave me, he LOVED it.  He painted them pretty cool, too.  A couple of stripey fish and some bunnies.  I need to pull out a bigger assortment for him next time.  Eggs should be interesting though, I got watercolors for them to be painted with, so they’ll probably turn out really pretty.

I’ve always wanted to take a cruise. I went on one once, sort of. It was a day cruise, so we left from some port in Florida at 7am or so and came back at like 8am. There were no stops, no ports of call, and not much fun. We swam in the pool for an hour or so and wandered around. At one point I recall standing outside the casino for a little while while my father went in and played a few slots. That was it. I’d like to go, someday, on a real cruise. The kind that takes awhile, visits nice places and is all around fun. Sometimes, when I’m in the mood for a little fantasy vacation planning, I check out the cruise specials at CruiseLocators.com. I think I’d most like to take a cruise to Alaska or somewhere in Europe. There are some very interesting sounding European cruises that aren’t to the standards like the Mediteranean — Baltic cruises, for example. Hawaii would also be nice, of course. There are some cruises to the Orient that would probably be a lot of fun. Cruiselocators.com even has specialty cruises, like a Lord of the Rings tour — which sounds really interesting.

Is it weird that I really love working at the grocery store?  What can I say, I love the grocery store — always have.  I could wander a grocery store for hours and never get bored with it.  As a matter of fact, I HAVE done that.  Someone I used to hang out with and I would drive around late at night, and sometimes would go wander the 24 hour grocery stores for awhile.  It was fun.  If I could find a job that allowed me to do grocery shopping for other people, it would be the perfect job.  I know that it’s possible — stores that do home delivery or in store pick up have people who do the shopping for the orders.  My store doesn’t do that, once they start, I’ll have to ask about changing positions — it would just be too perfect, you know?

Being one of those gals who is “well endowed” to put it politely, I often have a hard time finding bras and bathing suits that fit. Especially since the rest of me doesn’t really “fit” that particular proportion. I have a pool party for my nieces birthday to go to next month, and being able to find a Full Busted Bra to go with the bathing suit bottom I already have would be wonderful. The top I have now is ok, but it doesn’t fit my chest quite right. As a matter of fact, the fit is quite wrong — the top is stretched so much when I wear it that you can see white lines where the fabric is stretched to the near breaking point. It’s not attractive, and everytime I wear it I’m afraid that I’m going to end up doing some R-rated variation on the chest burster scene from Alien. Biggerbras.com has a huge selection of bathing suits and bras that come in appropriate sizes for me — I’m seriously in heaven browsing this site. Now I just need to find one that matches the bottom I already have.

So, it’s Valentines Day.  Nothing special.  Did some ceramics and bought a few things at WalMart today.  Gave Gage a little  heart shaped box of chocolates, and since Michael and Madison are going to be here this weekend (along with Gage and Kalina), I got some ceramic eggs for the kids to paint.  Got water colors for them to paint with instead of regular acrylic paint — I figured it would be easier to clean up if it gets on the carpet.  It’ll also be nice and light and give a “dyed egg” look to the eggs.  They can keep their eggs or give them to Grammy to put into a basket for Easter decoration.

For Gage’s class, I got him some Pirates of the Caribbean valentines and special lolipops.  They’re Winnie the Pooh Saf-T-Pops, with letters and numbers on them.  I thought they’d be really cool for the class, especially since they’re made on dedicated equipment and so they’re not exposed to or made with peanuts, tree nuts, milk, eggs or wheat gluton.  Which basically means that they’re safe for any allergies in his class (there is a peanut allergy) and any special diets (dairy and/or gluton free). 

I’m working on putting together a small sensory kit for Gage.  Just so he can have some “sensory time” at home.  I’ve tried things like rolling him up in a blanket and stuff, he doesn’t seem to dig that.  I’d like to get him one of those body sox — I think he’d really enjoy it, but they run about $45.  Can’t afford that at the moment.  So I got him a special ball, a groan stick and a glitter wand to start.  I’m going to get some weighted stuffed animals and perhaps a small weighted blanket soon as well. 

Nothing else really going on for <3 day.  Although, mom did get me a little bear with a rose and some heart lolipops (she also got stuff for her grandkids), and one of my best friends got me a really cool omelet pan and spatula — the pan is square, so I can also do perfect eggs for fried egg sandwiches.  Color me bizarre, but I think that’s a really awesome gift.