KA is po'd that Dave and Kylee went to a college football game without him.
KA: I don't even know why they go together. They only have a few things in common
1. THey are both strong 2. They both have the same cell phone 3. They both don't listen to you (thanks son!)
Now Dad and I have a lot in common so I am a better choice
1. We both like sports 2. We are really great builders 3. We like Star Wars 4. We like our dog Bene 5. You guys don't hide in the bedroom when I am around like you do when Kylee comes over 6. We both really like you more than anything 7. We both like to read 8. I'll eat a hamburger at the game and Kylee won't...there are 92 more but I can't think of them. So you see I am the logical choice. Next time Dad needs to go to the game with us.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Counter-Intelligence
So Carrie from ACES goes out to the school to see KA. He basically tells her "Pssttt, you know what I do...but you can't tell anyone. Sometimes I sneak over to the second grade playground to play with my brother even though I am not suppose to be over there. And I then sneak back right before the bell rings."
So he takes her over to said playground and talks and plays with her there. About 30 seconds before the bell rings he says, "PSSSTTT, we got to get out of here because the bell is going to ring. Lets go!" She said it was eerie how he knew that bell was going to ring.
So he takes her over to said playground and talks and plays with her there. About 30 seconds before the bell rings he says, "PSSSTTT, we got to get out of here because the bell is going to ring. Lets go!" She said it was eerie how he knew that bell was going to ring.
Name, Rank and Serial Number ONLY Son
So I walk up to KU's teacher this morning and ask if he is still falling asleep in class as I adjusted his medication. No, she tells me but he did get dentention. Did he tell you?
Seems that when the kids came back in the classroom from lunch the kids told the teacher that Kullen was sticking his fingers up his nose (hasn't he learned by now NEVER to put anything up his nose?)
KU: Well the kids told me to do it.
Teacher: Kullen if the kids told you to play on the freeway would you?
KU: What is a freeway?
Teacher: Kullen if the kids told you to jump off a cliff would you?
KU: What is a clift?
Teacher: Okay. If the kids told you to play in the street would you?
KU: Probably not......Is this the kind of thing you get detention for?
Teacher (the possibility of detention never crossed my mind) Why, do you think you deserve dentention?
KU: Well I am not sure I deserve it but I did earn it.
Teacher: Well, okay, then. You have detention.
Seems that when the kids came back in the classroom from lunch the kids told the teacher that Kullen was sticking his fingers up his nose (hasn't he learned by now NEVER to put anything up his nose?)
KU: Well the kids told me to do it.
Teacher: Kullen if the kids told you to play on the freeway would you?
KU: What is a freeway?
Teacher: Kullen if the kids told you to jump off a cliff would you?
KU: What is a clift?
Teacher: Okay. If the kids told you to play in the street would you?
KU: Probably not......Is this the kind of thing you get detention for?
Teacher (the possibility of detention never crossed my mind) Why, do you think you deserve dentention?
KU: Well I am not sure I deserve it but I did earn it.
Teacher: Well, okay, then. You have detention.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Conversations All Night Long
KA is getting frustrated because I am making him re-do a part of his homework
Ka: Are you trying to make me crack because I swear my shell is breaking! I telling you I am about to lose my temper....here it comes....ready or not...now I am going to explode!
God and Santa
Tonight we went out to Denny's for dinner. Here is the conversation:
KU: Does Santa die?
Me (thinking oh,crap how do I answer this. Okay a simple NO should suffice) NO
KU:I guess God knows if Santa dies it would make all the children sad.
KA: So does Santa believe in God?
Me: (Oh man not another one of these questions...go for the short but sweet answer) YES
KA: I think that is why God gives Santa the gift of eternal life because he believes!
Me: Where did you hear about eternal life?
KA: God told me
STOP THAT KA
For about the past month KA has been bringing his foot up behind him and slapping it with his hand. Today I told him he needed to stop doing that.
Ka: Are you trying, in a really sly mom way, to tell me not to do that in public. That's what you really mean isn't it!
Me: Well, yes I am. When you do things like that they become habits that you do even when you aren't thinking about doing it. So if you do it at home you will probably do it in public because it has become a habit.
Ka: So you are telling me you don't want it to become a homelic problem. That's like a public problem except it happens at home.I'm pretty clever, aren't I mom!
Ka: Are you trying to make me crack because I swear my shell is breaking! I telling you I am about to lose my temper....here it comes....ready or not...now I am going to explode!
God and Santa
Tonight we went out to Denny's for dinner. Here is the conversation:
KU: Does Santa die?
Me (thinking oh,crap how do I answer this. Okay a simple NO should suffice) NO
KU:I guess God knows if Santa dies it would make all the children sad.
KA: So does Santa believe in God?
Me: (Oh man not another one of these questions...go for the short but sweet answer) YES
KA: I think that is why God gives Santa the gift of eternal life because he believes!
Me: Where did you hear about eternal life?
KA: God told me
STOP THAT KA
For about the past month KA has been bringing his foot up behind him and slapping it with his hand. Today I told him he needed to stop doing that.
Ka: Are you trying, in a really sly mom way, to tell me not to do that in public. That's what you really mean isn't it!
Me: Well, yes I am. When you do things like that they become habits that you do even when you aren't thinking about doing it. So if you do it at home you will probably do it in public because it has become a habit.
Ka: So you are telling me you don't want it to become a homelic problem. That's like a public problem except it happens at home.I'm pretty clever, aren't I mom!
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Campfire Rules
Sunday night as we are singing around the campfire
KA: Dad could you please keep up with the song. Singing the right notes would be nice too!
KA: Dad could you please keep up with the song. Singing the right notes would be nice too!
Thursday, September 3, 2009
WHAT KA REALLY THINKS
WHAT KARSON REALLY THINKS
KA: Mom, why didn't you bring in the wagon. Is it because you are clumsy or just too old to remember anything? (said with utmost sincerity)
KA: Mom, why didn't you bring in the wagon. Is it because you are clumsy or just too old to remember anything? (said with utmost sincerity)
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
THAT WOMAN
THAT WOMAN by KA
KA: Mom, what can I have for a snack?
Me: A cinnamon apple rice cake
KA: AWW I don't want one of those
Me: Sorry. That is what is available for snack
KA: What else can I have?
Me: No choices. Just a rice cake
He starts to leave the room and I hear him muttering under his breath "I'm going to have to teach THAT WOMAN about the daily special."
KA: Mom, what can I have for a snack?
Me: A cinnamon apple rice cake
KA: AWW I don't want one of those
Me: Sorry. That is what is available for snack
KA: What else can I have?
Me: No choices. Just a rice cake
He starts to leave the room and I hear him muttering under his breath "I'm going to have to teach THAT WOMAN about the daily special."
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Autism 101 By KU
Often times we have our best conversations in the car so tonight while KU and I had a night out I decided to broach the subject of autism. Our conversation went like this:
Me: Hey, KU have you ever heard the word autism?
K: I'm not sure but I think so.
I pause wondering if I should go on
K: So what is it?
Me: Well, it is something that some people have. Sometimes a person with autism hears noises louder than other people. LIke they might hear the refrigerator sound very loud whereas most people can not really hear it. Or sometimes for someone with autism lights seem very bright. Sometimes people with autism find it hard to be touched or they are really ticklish. Do you want me to go on?
KU: Okay.
Me: Sometimes people who have autism find it hard to look other people in the eyes when they are talking to them and sometimes it is very hard for them to sit still. For some people with autism the tags in their shirts make them itchy. Sometimes it is hard for them to talk to other people. But people with autism are usually very smart and often they see things in ways that other people don't which makes them good artists or good with computers or good playing a musical instrument. Their brains just work a little differently than many people, but hey, everyone is different. Some people have brown hair, some people need a wheelchair to get around. Having autism is just like being a boy or being Korean or having blue or brown eyes. It is just a part of who a person is but not the whole person. Do you have any questions?
KU:" Mom, do you have autism cause if you do, I still love you just the way you are!"
Me: Hey, KU have you ever heard the word autism?
K: I'm not sure but I think so.
I pause wondering if I should go on
K: So what is it?
Me: Well, it is something that some people have. Sometimes a person with autism hears noises louder than other people. LIke they might hear the refrigerator sound very loud whereas most people can not really hear it. Or sometimes for someone with autism lights seem very bright. Sometimes people with autism find it hard to be touched or they are really ticklish. Do you want me to go on?
KU: Okay.
Me: Sometimes people who have autism find it hard to look other people in the eyes when they are talking to them and sometimes it is very hard for them to sit still. For some people with autism the tags in their shirts make them itchy. Sometimes it is hard for them to talk to other people. But people with autism are usually very smart and often they see things in ways that other people don't which makes them good artists or good with computers or good playing a musical instrument. Their brains just work a little differently than many people, but hey, everyone is different. Some people have brown hair, some people need a wheelchair to get around. Having autism is just like being a boy or being Korean or having blue or brown eyes. It is just a part of who a person is but not the whole person. Do you have any questions?
KU:" Mom, do you have autism cause if you do, I still love you just the way you are!"
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Suffering
My sister is my only sibling. We were never particularly close as kids. I think illness separates you in that way. One child wishing she was healthy like the carefree one... while the healthy one wishes she was getting all the attention the sick one is receiving. Neither sib wins in a relationship like this.
When my sister was seven years old her pediatrician gave her too large of a dosage of medicine which killed her kidneys. She had seizures, fevers and lost most of her body weight. I still remember the time my parents snuck me in the hospital to see her and all I could see was a skeleton of skin and bones. I shook on the inside from fear, rattling every internal organ to the core. I wanted to shake on the outside but couldn't let my sister see the effect that she had on me. I was only eight but I knew that the fear I was feeling was just something I had to hide from everyone, especially myself. And so I did as if my life depended on it and I never looked back until many years later. By then it was too late. Our relationship would never be what it could have been. Lies/fear stunt its growth.
I also remember the shunt that stuck out of my sisters arm like a curving snake slithering into her arm and disappearing within the two holes that looked red, raw and perpetually oozy. It was her lifeline to a washing machine sized dialysis unit that kept her alive. Back then I gather that it was a somewhat hazardous process. In fact, I remember listening to my parents whisper about someone who had died while connected. I know I went and saw my sister once when she was undergoing treatment and once again I was shook to my core. When I was older I blamed my parents from not being honest about what was happening, from shielding me from all the unpleasantness which created an unpleasant scariness of its own. But now I wonder what they saw when they were looking at me looking at her. Perhaps they were doing me a favor after all.
Anyway, when my sister was eight my mother donated a kidney to my sister. To this day I still don't know if it was her left or her right. I just remember seeing her with stitches going from her front to her back and wondered if she would have been willing to be in all that pain for me for by then I felt so outside of the loop of what we call family. Guilt, fear and pain melded together to create a child who was there on the outside but was long gone on the inside. Always comparing and always coming up short. Funny thing the same thing was going on with my sister yet we really never knew until we were older how much this effected our lives. Time passed. My mother did too. Her gift still living within my sister for a total of 28 years. Then it was my turn to donate something I wanted to do in hopes of somehow evening out our lives and what had become of them. A hope of salvation and redemption for both of us. My husband wasn't so sure. My sister was having mental health issues at the time and he was afraid that she may decided to stop the drugs that would keep her alive. As it turned out a few years later she did just that. When I found out there was only one thing I could say "I gave you a gift and only you can decide what to do with that gift and whatever you decide I will support you." That one sentence spoken from the heart evened out the playing field in my sisters mind. The indebtedness to someone she felt so conflicted about disappeared and we slowly began to repair our relationship. Now ten years later her kidney is once again failing and there is no family to look towards for donation. She refuses to ask her children after spending years worrying about my health and the guilt she would feel if I were to get ill. She is adamant about keeping loved ones out of the process. And so we sit and wait...the clock slowly ticking... to see how long it will take before she needs to go back on dialysis...if she ever chooses to.
Recently, it has come to my attention that my sister may want to forego further medical intervention. For it has come up here and there that heading down that path which leads to a dangerous and confusing medical precipious might not be the one she will decide to take. My father and I were discussing the ramifications of this the other day. My father said that he would support her right to make this choice and would do whatever it took to make sure this choice remained open to her by zealots who might try and implement their religious ideals upon her. However, he said that as much as he would help make sure that these options remained open to her as his daughter it was very painful to think about her deciding that she did not want to walk the path along the dialysis line. And as he said it I replied, "Why because she hadn't suffered enough?"
Why is it, I wondered, that for most of us it appears that there is a certain amount of time that we feel someone must suffer before we can let them go? It's one thing if a freak accident of nature renders our loved one brain dead. For these types of situations most of us can let go saying with all sincerity "they didn't want to live that way. They didn't want to suffer." But let a person decide on their own that they want to opt out of life preserving treatment and for some reason it becomes more difficult to view it in that manner. Somehow when a person makes the decision to die by forgoing treatment it becomes in our minds something akin to suicide and we just can't tolerate that. Instead, we ask that they suffer. Suffer the pain and humility of treatments that render them helpless, hopeless and often in incredible pain. Then and only then do we see their suffering as worthy of death.
I am not sure where we Americans picked up the notion that suffering is admirable, enlightening or an event that provides an opportunity for one to discover a virtue that may have been hidden throughout ones life only to rise up at the end like a butterfly emerging from its cocoon. Why is it so unpalatable to just say no to prolonging the inevitable? At what point does suffering cease to have any meaning? Is it when a person is so drugged up on morphine that they can no longer contemplate their fate or revisit the good and the bad they have caused and its implications? Or does suffering have any true meaning at all? Is it all for show or does it in fact provide the wisdom necessary to complete one's journey?
TO BE CONTINUED
When my sister was seven years old her pediatrician gave her too large of a dosage of medicine which killed her kidneys. She had seizures, fevers and lost most of her body weight. I still remember the time my parents snuck me in the hospital to see her and all I could see was a skeleton of skin and bones. I shook on the inside from fear, rattling every internal organ to the core. I wanted to shake on the outside but couldn't let my sister see the effect that she had on me. I was only eight but I knew that the fear I was feeling was just something I had to hide from everyone, especially myself. And so I did as if my life depended on it and I never looked back until many years later. By then it was too late. Our relationship would never be what it could have been. Lies/fear stunt its growth.
I also remember the shunt that stuck out of my sisters arm like a curving snake slithering into her arm and disappearing within the two holes that looked red, raw and perpetually oozy. It was her lifeline to a washing machine sized dialysis unit that kept her alive. Back then I gather that it was a somewhat hazardous process. In fact, I remember listening to my parents whisper about someone who had died while connected. I know I went and saw my sister once when she was undergoing treatment and once again I was shook to my core. When I was older I blamed my parents from not being honest about what was happening, from shielding me from all the unpleasantness which created an unpleasant scariness of its own. But now I wonder what they saw when they were looking at me looking at her. Perhaps they were doing me a favor after all.
Anyway, when my sister was eight my mother donated a kidney to my sister. To this day I still don't know if it was her left or her right. I just remember seeing her with stitches going from her front to her back and wondered if she would have been willing to be in all that pain for me for by then I felt so outside of the loop of what we call family. Guilt, fear and pain melded together to create a child who was there on the outside but was long gone on the inside. Always comparing and always coming up short. Funny thing the same thing was going on with my sister yet we really never knew until we were older how much this effected our lives. Time passed. My mother did too. Her gift still living within my sister for a total of 28 years. Then it was my turn to donate something I wanted to do in hopes of somehow evening out our lives and what had become of them. A hope of salvation and redemption for both of us. My husband wasn't so sure. My sister was having mental health issues at the time and he was afraid that she may decided to stop the drugs that would keep her alive. As it turned out a few years later she did just that. When I found out there was only one thing I could say "I gave you a gift and only you can decide what to do with that gift and whatever you decide I will support you." That one sentence spoken from the heart evened out the playing field in my sisters mind. The indebtedness to someone she felt so conflicted about disappeared and we slowly began to repair our relationship. Now ten years later her kidney is once again failing and there is no family to look towards for donation. She refuses to ask her children after spending years worrying about my health and the guilt she would feel if I were to get ill. She is adamant about keeping loved ones out of the process. And so we sit and wait...the clock slowly ticking... to see how long it will take before she needs to go back on dialysis...if she ever chooses to.
Recently, it has come to my attention that my sister may want to forego further medical intervention. For it has come up here and there that heading down that path which leads to a dangerous and confusing medical precipious might not be the one she will decide to take. My father and I were discussing the ramifications of this the other day. My father said that he would support her right to make this choice and would do whatever it took to make sure this choice remained open to her by zealots who might try and implement their religious ideals upon her. However, he said that as much as he would help make sure that these options remained open to her as his daughter it was very painful to think about her deciding that she did not want to walk the path along the dialysis line. And as he said it I replied, "Why because she hadn't suffered enough?"
Why is it, I wondered, that for most of us it appears that there is a certain amount of time that we feel someone must suffer before we can let them go? It's one thing if a freak accident of nature renders our loved one brain dead. For these types of situations most of us can let go saying with all sincerity "they didn't want to live that way. They didn't want to suffer." But let a person decide on their own that they want to opt out of life preserving treatment and for some reason it becomes more difficult to view it in that manner. Somehow when a person makes the decision to die by forgoing treatment it becomes in our minds something akin to suicide and we just can't tolerate that. Instead, we ask that they suffer. Suffer the pain and humility of treatments that render them helpless, hopeless and often in incredible pain. Then and only then do we see their suffering as worthy of death.
I am not sure where we Americans picked up the notion that suffering is admirable, enlightening or an event that provides an opportunity for one to discover a virtue that may have been hidden throughout ones life only to rise up at the end like a butterfly emerging from its cocoon. Why is it so unpalatable to just say no to prolonging the inevitable? At what point does suffering cease to have any meaning? Is it when a person is so drugged up on morphine that they can no longer contemplate their fate or revisit the good and the bad they have caused and its implications? Or does suffering have any true meaning at all? Is it all for show or does it in fact provide the wisdom necessary to complete one's journey?
TO BE CONTINUED
Conversation in the Car
I always love our conversations in the car where the truth appears swiftly whether I like it or not.
We are going to the boy's therapist and this conversation occurs
Me: I think I want to play with Dr. Sullivan today.
Karson: I don't think so mom. She only plays with people my size. You're too fat.
Me: Well thanks Karson but I think she would play with me
Karson: Mom, I go there to play but also to tell her about my life. LIke what I did in San Francisco. Stuff like that. If you want to play with someone you have to get your OWN therapist, not mine. Maybe you could talk to Amy. You like Amy and she likes you. You could both talk about your lives and play together too. I think she is a Candy Land type of girl.
We are going to the boy's therapist and this conversation occurs
Me: I think I want to play with Dr. Sullivan today.
Karson: I don't think so mom. She only plays with people my size. You're too fat.
Me: Well thanks Karson but I think she would play with me
Karson: Mom, I go there to play but also to tell her about my life. LIke what I did in San Francisco. Stuff like that. If you want to play with someone you have to get your OWN therapist, not mine. Maybe you could talk to Amy. You like Amy and she likes you. You could both talk about your lives and play together too. I think she is a Candy Land type of girl.
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