What, me thankful?

1. My coping mechanism with another tough week around here has been baseball, and more Baseball. So, not much different from last week. I did finish watching the Ken Burns series and liked it; I know a lot more about baseball than before, that's for sure. My favorite episodes were the ones talking about the Black Sox Scandal, Babe Ruth and Jackie Robinson. I even watched the "Tenth Inning" episode that was released last year but didn't like it as well as the original series; that may be because much of it dealt with 9/11 and the steroids scandals, and there's not a lot of happy things to be said about either of those subjects. I did decide to request from the library a book called Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroids Scandal that Rocked Professional Sports by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams. I'm a history buff; I like to know what happened. And I'll bet nowhere in their book do they mention living with autism, so it counts as escapist reading.

I expect I will watch Burns' Prohibition series next, and maybe then Jazz, which Marshall might watch with me. I know The War is supposed to be excellent, but I don't think I could handle watching real people die. I've never watched all of Band of Brothers, as good as I know it is and as much as I love Damian Lewis, because it would make me cry. There's enough to cry about around here without adding entertainment to the list.

2. Like geography tests (things to cry about, that is.) Alex was scheduled to have his first classroom test ever this morning in his neurotypical second grade class and so I sat down with him Wednesday night to try to help him study. One look at the blank map of the world (continents and oceans) I had produced and he completely fell apart and had to be put to bed immediately with hugs and soothing stories from Daddy.

Yesterday, I communicated back and forth with his teacher (of the self-contained autistic class) to check and see what might be on the test and what he would be required to do. From her answers, I decided there was nothing I should mention to him about it and he probably knew all the answers anyway.

And I thought I was an anxious student. My poor, sweet boy, who seems to be Mr. Popular in this neurotypical second grade class (a little blonde girl has a crush on him), apparently needs no interference from me about his school work. But when I discussed it later with Marshall, I wondered what "regular" parents do. I mean, if Alex seriously could not sit and take this test, he would simple be excused from it. He is "classified" and it's not worth fighting him over it when doing so would create in him more anxiety than necessary. But neurotypical kids can have anxiety over exams. What do their parents say?

******************* Oops, got busy yesterday afternoon (actually, I stopped at the library before going to Alex's Halloween parade and party and picked up Naked City and read it, practically, cover to cover, because Jim Butcher and Patricia Briggs had new short stories in it) and didn't finish this until Saturday afternoon. Sorry. ************************

3. Since it's now Saturday, I can tell you that after talking with Alex's teacher and his primary aide, Miss Kathy, I learned that he did fine on the geography test. He was allowed to cut the titles out of a list (Pacific Ocean, Asia, Antarctica, etc.) and paste them in the appropriate places on the map. Phew!

4. When exactly did zombies go mainstream? On the Bubble Guppies Halloween episode, that premiered last Monday (I looked everywhere for the video but couldn't find it, sorry), one of the characters is dressed as a zombie. And this is a pre-school show! Zombies were even referenced on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me this week. (If you want to hear it, click on "Listen to the Full Show" and after the player launches, listen to the segment "Panel Round Two.") I guess it's time to request Pride and Prejudice and Zombies from the library at last and catch up on the latest serious movement sweeping the nation.

5. And, even though it's only October 29th, a combination of rain, snow and hail has been falling since early this morning and will continue all day. It was an interesting drive to church for the Fall Festival, let me tell you. Of course, though, since there was a Moonbounce there, I couldn't miss the event. My children would never forgive me.

Miranda is confused. "It's Fall and Winter at the same time," she said as we were driving home in the slush. I agreed with her.

6. I should have planned my children's birthdays better. Both of them are in October and Miranda's is the day before Halloween, which means it's been party time for an entire month, even though the official family party was on the 15th. Tomorrow, Miranda will have a treat with her Sunday school class (we did her regular school class yesterday), we will do her Halloween parade Monday afternoon, and do a little trick or treating Monday night. We will, of course, give out candy at the door, candy which I foolishly bought on Wednesday and have already been eating myself (next year I'm really going to wait until the day before Halloween to buy candy to give out to our neighborhood children!), and rejoice on Tuesday that October is behind us for a whole other year.

The Halloween-so-far pictures are here, but I thought I'd include a few cute ones.

Miranda, the fairy princess.

Two fairy princesses! (That's the Youth Pastor's daughter).

Alex playing Angry Birds while waiting for the Moonbounce to inflate.

Moustache courtesy of Miss Susan.

7. If you have time to kill and have a fondness for dummies, let me introduce Achmed the Dead Terrorist. Really, really NSFW or children or anyone who worries about political correctness. And, even worse, Achmed sings Jingle Bombs.

And here's Jen.