And she doesn’t even know!

What an interesting morning and afternoon and day!

It actually began yesterday when my poor little boy was scared. I had sat down on the steps to put my shoes on and he came out to find me seated. What was so sad was how immediately he thought I was injured! My poor kiddies (and many others I’m sure) are assuming trouble even when I’m sitting down clearly holding one shoe in my hand and not complaining. He asked if I had fallen, and if I wanted help getting up.🥹Poor boy. I won’t scare him like that again!

Today, he looked stressed when I needed to use my new and upgraded cane! I had one but my non-speaker kept taking it and so I hid it so thoroughly that even I don’t recall where I put it. But, I’m glad I can’t find it! It was a normal cane and it kept sliding when I put my weight on it. This one doesn’t. It has four legs and is height adjustable – like my old one also was. It’s sooooo much more stable!

I am struggling with increased pain this week… I looked for a pain patch- box empty. So I used Deep Heat joint and muscle spray. What was the first thing my girl said 30 minutes after I sprayed? As soon as she woke up? She wanted to know, “ What’s the smell..? It’s coming from..from YOU?” Made it sound like I’d farted!

I told her what it was and knowing her smell sense IS sensitive, I asked if I should leave her to wake up fully and get dressed on her own. She refused. She said she liked the smell! It smells like something ‘good.’

It did reduce the burning pain for many hours before it slowly started creeping back in again now in the night m. I didn’t need to use my new and improved cane all day long.

Now, the heading is linked to this AS fight but first, small steps.

For the first time in my entire life, something Amarissa first noted and LOVED and kept marveling over, my girl came to me to seek comfort! She actually came to me for a hug because she was sad!

She was sad she didn’t have cake 😂Don’t ask me why she wanted cake. She had NEVER wanted cake before. She doesn’t eat birthday cake when it’s offered except for the times she stuck her teeth in a full cake or the time she screamed and fought us because we wouldn’t let her have an entire cake ! And it’s so random. Who wakes up and demands cake? Sometimes she wants potatoes! So..not something you just have lying around. But wow, we were blown away, my ten year old and I. She came to me, only me, wanting to be hugged! The same girl who – like her twin- backs up when you offer a hug so you hug them from behind and quickly springs out the hug!

Maybe she wanted cake because when we had cake, her biggest sister was home. It was Micaiah’s birthday on the 24th of last month and big sister went back to college a few days later.🤔Maybe she thought the cake would come with her sister.

And then another first. For years, she acted as if we didn’t exist as humans. She would walk on fingers and feet or someone lying down as if we were part of the floor. She would take what she wanted even from our hand as if our hand was just some inanimate object that didn’t belong to any human who might have wanted the object THEY WERE HOLDING! But today, she came and sat next to her twin, looked at the noodles her twin was NOT eating, looked at her twin(!!) and looked down at the noodles again and slowly and slightly, shifted the bowl towards herself and checked to see if her sister would complain!!

I was so excited!! And twin sister took one forkful and pushed the plate to her and handed her the fork🥰. She promptly grabbed it and went to sit on the sofa she had been sitting on before she spotted the leftover noodles.

She has been smiling for some months now. Just making eye contact and smiling! For the sake of it. This had died when she was 18 months old. And it’s back! She is happy playing alone and exploring the garden. And she is loving her occupational therapist.

It is good! And her sparkly twin sister who has been dying to have an actual twin is loving the new sister! She came again bubbling because her twin sat on her lap! She said she was soooo happy. 🥰🥰☺️☺️☺️

Now for the heading. The two who cut their locs have been hard to handle. If I leave their hair in an Afro- you know the story- overuse of ‘stolen’ products. If in wool, overdoing of tight hairstyles that will cause traction alopecia. But when I started their latched locks again, they hated that they had short hair. Ironic given it had grown from the length they’d cut it down to! So they kept fiddling with their hair. Putting it in elastics, plaiting some together which had led to the plaited ones starting to loc together! Baby locs do NOT want to be manipulated all the time!

My girl told me twice now, how shocked the OT was when she first saw her with cut hair and then wool. She asked why her locs were gone. And Ammy told her they’d cut their hair. OT said, “Poor mom!” as if she knows the pain and time taken to have strayed those thriving locs. When she heard that I was the one who had now installed baby locs, she said it again, “Poor mom!” No mother wants to redo things unnecessarily. No mother wants to waste time doing things to fix messes they didn’t create. But we do.

All mothers get tired. But some of us are ever fatigued, and constantly in pain even before we do anything. So yes, poor Mommy! It’s not like I don’t have leave from my teaching job! Poor mommy!🙃 And she doesn’t even know I have AS nor what that means for using stiff fingers to do hair and, the agony of standing or sitting and just normal child care for five hectic children, while helping the sixth one find out why one module wasn’t added to her timetable.

I forgot to give Twin A her ADHD meds. I told her to postpone school till I felt the meds had taken effect.

Can’t do school when a little one is doing this before even one line of ‘work’ is done!🫣

Can never say my life is boring!