Observations

As I write this, I'm experiencing a strange thing.

Aloneness.

Adrienne and Nick are at their dad's, Kevin is at work and Ruby is long asleep. My house is half-packed and it's 11:15 p.m. and I feel good. Very centered and sure of myself. I feel like I can conquer the world, if I have to. I also feel grateful that I don't have to.

I wanted to thank Laura for her comment about Nick. It's strange, you know. I sometimes (pretty often) get called on the carpet for my acceptance of him. You know: the kid needs more discipline, he needs a good whack, "if he were MY kid..." About the code-switching--my personal thought on it is that as he gets older it won't matter so much. Because an adult talking to a kid like an equal isn't quite the same in our society as a kid talking to an adult as one, right?

He took a personality test today as part of his extraordinarily long psycho-educational testing to get a medical diagnosis of autism (or whatever.) It had 450 questions. I talked them into letting me read them to him, because if he had to read them to himself, we'd still be there. Funny thing though--he skipped a spot in the bubble filling out and so from about halfway through the test, the answers didn't reflect his response to the question.

For instance: I smoke marijuana regularly was marked as "true" on accident. As was: I am obsessed with sexual thoughts and I hate everyone in my family. Hmm. Marked mistakenly as false: I like myself, I never tease animals and I am not fascinated with fire.

Thank God I caught the mistake. Can you imagine the response that would have come back? Administering the test was enlightening though. Nick is clearly okay with himself. He is cool with himself. He thinks people get mad at him without cause, which has apparently made him slightly paranoid.

Tomorrow morning I'm going to get a blood test (my thyroid again. We'll see.) and then pick up Adrienne and Nick from their dad's house. Then Adrienne is leaving for Ely with her grandparents. A whole month without my girl. How am I going to manage it? I seriously don't know. I've never spent so much time away from her. I'm going to miss her so much.

The other day I watched The Secret Movie. It was pretty--enlightening. All about the law of attraction and the impact that gratitude and visualization can have. I was a little disappointed in the materialistic bent of the movie (a ton of the movie was about using the secret to get things like a sports car--which is totally inappropriate in this time of dwindling resources IMO.) But the basic gist was really good. I'm going to spend some meditation time visualizing Adrienne making good friends and finding totally happiness at her new school.

On Monday I'm having some dental work. I'm choosing to be grateful that I can have the work done, and see myself having a healthy mouth. One step toward that is my decision to brush and floss every time I eat. Something has to give. Less than two years ago I had no cavities, now I have decay so bad I need two root canals and three filings? Plus, it'll help make me very aware of what I'm eating I guess. Nothing wrong with that. I do not want to be the 40-year-old toothless wonder, you know?