• My work, and the fact that there just aren’t enough hours in a day to do all of the work that I always have waiting for me
• My husband
• My best friend, Jason
• My children
• My family – and Dan’s, too!
• Sephora
• Glitter
• Pain meds!

Against my better judgment, I agreed to go with Dan, the kids and my brother to Dan’s aunt’s house for Thanksgiving dinner. I really wasn’t up to it, but at the same time I didn’t want to miss out on seeing everyone, and trying some of my aunt-in-law’s awesome, drool-worthy sausage stuffing. It was good, but after we were there for a little over two hours, during which time I sat in a cozy chair and dozed off for a while, I was more than ready to go. I thought the ride there sucked, the ride home sucked even more. But when we got home I insisted on Dan helping me with a quick shower, because I felt more than a little skanky from being in the hospital all day yesterday.

Right now it’s a little after 9:00pm. We’ve been home for about three hours, during which time I took the aforementioned shower, another dose of pain medication, and then a dose of anti-nausea medication because the pain meds made me feel sick (speaking of feeling sick, you know what’s horrific? Waking up after abdominal surgery feeling extremely nauseous and then heaving). I watched a few TV shows and sort of dozed off, only a rather annoying and slightly stabby feeling pain in the right side of my abdomen is preventing me from falling asleep, despite both the pain meds and the anti-nausea meds causing drowsiness. Blah.

So, how is/was your Thanksgiving?

Thank you for subscribing to Jenn.nu's RSS feed! ♥ Jenn | Flickr: kiss-my-kitty | Twitter: @kissmykitty

Anyway, Happy Thanksgiving! We’re off the hook for cooking this year, since Dan’s aunt graciously invited us over for Thanksgiving linner. I call it linner because 3:00pm is too late for a typical lunch, but definitely too early for a dinner. So linner it is. Right now I’m hoping to knock some writing assignments out of the way and bake a batch of these amazing cookies, but I’m not sure how much I’ll accomplish since we’re leaving at 12:00pm to go over to Dan’s workplace to put up Christmas decorations.

Tonight is going to be a crazy one. I have decided to brave the madness in honor of Black Friday shopping. It’s something I’ve never done before, so I’m a bit excited. I have four specific things to purchase, including a blue Nintendo DSi for Ryan (Christmas present), so wish me luck! Jason and I are going together, so at least I won’t worry about dozing off in line or something. We’re going to start around midnight and stop… whenever! Haha. I know we’ll be out until at least 5:00am, since Target opens at 4:00am and it’s #1 on my stores-to-hit-up list.

Since Thanksgiving is all about being thankful, which I am, here’s what I’m thankful for:

• My family — my wonderful, sexy and awesome husband Daniel, my smart, artistic and strong-willed (that’s a compliment, really!) daughter, and my handsome, bright and energetic son
• My pets — here’s to healthy, happy, housebroken pets (if you’ve ever set foot in my mother’s house you’ll understand why I included that)
• My house and everything in it, as well as our vehicles (especially mine — point A to point B, baby, that’s all that counts!)
• My freelance work, and the clients who provide it!
• My health, my gastric bypass surgery, and my own happiness!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Try not to go too crazy with the turkey.

Thank you for subscribing to Jenn.nu's RSS feed! ♥ Jenn | Flickr: kiss-my-kitty | Twitter: @kissmykitty

Thank you for subscribing to Jenn.nu's RSS feed! ♥ Jenn | Flickr: kiss-my-kitty | Twitter: @kissmykitty

Some days I feel like screaming at him (Dan) about having his head in the sand. Other days, like today, I just want to be flippant and sarcastic. Sure, developmental delays. You keep calling them that, and I’ll keep trying to keep Ryan from having meltdowns at holiday get togethers, avoiding invitations to birthday parties because there will be too much stimulation, finding stylists that can cut the hair of a wriggling, fussing toddler just the right way so that the bald spot on the back of his head won’t show through, and generally rearrange how we deal with everyday life because Ryan can’t handle a lot of normal things.
Oh yeah, and Ryan is back to rocking again. The moment he gets up, after eating, when he’s bored or frustrated or tired, all throughout his naps (instead of napping), and at night before passing out on the floor. In addition to the bald spot returning, the callous on his spine is back, and I’m sure that I’ll be finding more onesies and thinner shirts with holes worn through the back because of the pressure of the callous wearing through the material.

Ryan IS talking a bit more — we have hi, hello (heh-wo), hi daddy, cereal (seh-wuel), no, oh no, uh oh and ouch pretty consistently. He’s imitating a lot, too. Each day we run through a bit list of words with him, and add more to the mix. Mommy, Daddy, Lissy, Leah, cat, dog, woof-woof, meow, choo-choo train, Blue’s Clues, Steve, Joe, nummy, and a few others I’m not thinking of.

Dan jumps on every single one of these milestones as proof that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with Ryan. Since, you know, an autistic child is nothing more than a lump that never develops, that it’s an all or nothing thing. And that the increased attempts at communication and imitation from Ryan somehow negate or cancel out his sensory issues, the spacing out, how he loves motion, how he can’t handle a lack of it, how he needs movement and rocking to soothe him, how he can’t handle stimulation in the form of too many people (read: more than Dan, Alyssa and myself) or too much noise, and whatever other issues that will certainly crop up in the coming months and years.

- – -

See, I meant to blog about Thanksgiving. But then I thought about how Ryan couldn’t handle the commotion there (truthfully, it wasn’t that loud. There were eighteen of us altogether, and we were split into two groups for eating — the thirty and up crowd in the dining room, and the under thirty/”kids” in the living room. And the only kids present were Alyssa, Ryan, and Dan’s aunt’s sister’s autistic/Aspergers twelve year old daughter), and off I went on my little tangent.

Thanksgiving was nice. We were going to do a Thanksgiving lunch here with my mother and grandfather, and then go to Dan’s aunt’s house for Thanksgiving dinner. But my grandfather wasn’t able to come, and my mom said there was no point in going to such work and making so much food for just her. I called on Thursday afternoon to invite her to Thanksgiving dinner with us, but she didn’t pick up the phone or call back. Honestly, I was relieved, given all the tension and stress between her, Dan and myself. I felt bad that we didn’t do lunch here, which was why I invited her to Thanksgiving dinner with us. But in some ways I’m glad she didn’t come with us. And hey, I’m off the hook in terms of guilt, because I DID extend the invitation.

Some photos from Thanksgiving:

Black Friday… blech. I didn’t participate in the madness that contributed to the death of a Walmart employee. I don’t do Black Friday. I’m not risking life and limb, literally, for a few sales. Dan and I stayed in until later Friday evening, and then we only went out because the power went out (some idiot rammed his car into a telephone pole, which resulted in knocking out the power to half the neighborhood), and because we kind of wanted to do some shopping. We went to the mall and then to Target. Traffic and crowds weren’t too bad, though Ryan didn’t handle the loudness of the mall very well. He wasn’t much better in Target. It was a relief to get him home and in bed!

Saturday and Sunday have been incredibly lazy days for the four of us. Dan worked Saturday but came home early because he’s sick, and he worked tonight. Me? I didn’t do much of anything.

On Friday we did some decorating, and then some more on Saturday. This is the earliest we have EVER decorated. Oh, and I have all of our Christmas cards for family, Ryan’s therapist, some of Dan’s co-workers and family friends all ready to go! I’m really on a roll this year. Normally we don’t get the decorations up and cards out in the mail until the middle of December!

Okay, enough with blogging! Right now I need to finish up Photography Girls, and then hopefully come up with a December/winter/Christmas layout for jenn.nu!

Thank you for subscribing to Jenn.nu's RSS feed! ♥ Jenn | Flickr: kiss-my-kitty | Twitter: @kissmykitty

Tonight, after Thanksgiving dinner is done with, we’re not going shopping like some of these idiots are. Instead, we’re going over to Dan’s place of employment to put up the Christmas tree and decorations, like we do every year. Since my mom won’t be with us to send the kids home with (I tried calling her to invite her with us this evening, but she hasn’t answered or called back), we’ll be bringing the kids with us, so I think I’ll bring along my laptop and a few movies, in addition to some toys, crayons and paper.

I haven’t blogged in a few days, partly because I’ve been busy with going to see my brother and doing some work, and partly because I’ve been busy working on Photography Girls. It’s almost finished. I need to do some minor tweaking here and there, and install a few mods, and it’ll be ready to go. I keep pushing back the launch date, and I feel bad for that, but I’ve just been so BUSY that I haven’t had the time to devote to getting it up and running. I know I said I’d have it ready yesterday, but at this rate it’ll be Friday, and only if I stay up really late tonight to finish everything up. I just might do that, because I want to get it over with so everyone can start posting!

Leah slept with us the other night. It was Dan’s idea, I swear. She loves being with us, and was already in bed with me (I was reading the draft of Midnight Sun while waiting for Dan to get home), so Dan was all, “Hey, she can sleep with us!” And she did. When I fell asleep, she was on the other side of Dan, curled up against his back with her head by his head. When I woke up in the morning, she was BETWEEN us, UNDER the covers with us, flat on her back, paws this way and that way, snoring. It was too cute, though I’m not sure how I feel about a dog under the covers with us. Heh.

Oh, and I’m happy. Dan’s new desk is finally put together and our living room is back to the way it should be. We ordered this desk on November 21st. It arrived the following Thursday, so Dan pulled out his old desk, took everything off of it, and then proceeded to put the new desk together. Only two pieces of the new desk were BROKEN. So he called up the company and ordered new pieces. They arrived yesterday, and until then our living room was a mess. To add insult to injury, I couldn’t get rid of his old desk right away. I listed it on FreeCycle last Wednesday, and got several responses. Two changed their minds once I told them the size (stupid, because the dimensions were listed in my original post), and another just never bothered to show up, then got bitchy with me when THREE DAYS LATER I emailed her to let her know that we put the desk out in front of our house with a “FREE!” sign and got rid of it that way.

All right, it’s time for me to get going. We’re leaving in twenty minutes or so. Have a good Thanksgiving everyone! Drive safely!

Thank you for subscribing to Jenn.nu's RSS feed! ♥ Jenn | Flickr: kiss-my-kitty | Twitter: @kissmykitty