Recovering Noah

I'm sure most of you have seen this by now. It's had over 7 million hits on Youtube and been on loads of chat shows, but it's still worth another look - even if you've watched it a gajillion times. It's a video of a lion who is reunited with his previous owners after they go to Africa in search of him. They'd been told not to expect much because Christian, the lion, was now a wild animal. Trust me, you have to watch this! It's set to Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You". After we had watched the video over and over again (Eli and Nandi LOVED it), I heard a tiny voice singing "Liiiiiiiiiii-oooooooooooooooooons will always love you!" And I turned around and found Eli dressed in a lion costume on all fours. He came running over to me and jumped in my arms. Too cute. All day yesterday he kept singing "Lions Will Always Love You." He honestly thought that's how the song went. Alright. Headed to Austin in about 30 minut...

I did something today that I have never done in my entire life. And I mean never done. I mopped. That's right. I have never mopped a floor. Ever. Guess I blew my image as the perfect housewife clear out of the water with that little revelation. Oh, come on. You've seen my room . It shouldn't come as a surprise. But, yup, I finally did it today. I got the mop, stuck it in some water, and cleaned our floors. Sim will be so surprised. That is if he doesn't slip and break his ankle first. How long does it take a mopped floor to dry, anyway? And I would like to point out I'm not a terrible person or anything. We've just always had carpet (until now) and a tiny kitchen. And Sim loves to mop. Okay, that is actually an extreme exaggeration. He doesn't love to mop. He just does it. I guess he's known me long enough to figure out that I won't ever get around to it. But today I did. High-five to me! So, here's the deal. Angel over at Voice of Adventure list...

Take a lazy Saturday afternoon, one bored 3-year old, a thing of shaving cream, a muffin tin, and some food coloring..... Take a lazy Saturday afternoon, one bored 6-year old, some dried rice, beans, a few hot wheels, some Smarties, and two Rubbermaid bins... Take a lazy Saturday afternoon, one bored 4-year old...... and a couch....

Hey, guess what? I got to meet a fellow blogger yesterday. Christine! From Welcome to My Brain! I've never actually met up with someone that I only knew from online before. But I've been reading her blog for awhile and was fairly safe and certain that she wasn't some crazy, psycho chick. And if she was -well, that made me one, too because we're actually a lot alike. Plus, I had the good fortune of finding out early on that she and my sister-in-law were suitemates one year in college... so she truly was, in fact, a thirtysomething female with five kids and a degree from Howard Payne - and not some weird man who was posing as a thirtysomething mother of five in order to lure me into some horrid trap. Clearly, I've watched too many Lifetime movies in my, um, lifetime. Anway, we met up yesterday and had a BLAST! The kids loved it. Of course, they were strangely on their best behavior - which means we have to meet up again sometime so they can all see the wild and unin...

Okay, I promise that this blog is not going to turn into an everyday discussion on Rick Springfield. However... I have to tell you something funny that's happened since I blogged the other day about my genuine shock that my childhood crush is 58 (turning 59 next month!) and is the exact same age as my dad. Well. I had hundreds of hits to RecoveringNoah after I blogged about Rick Springfield. I mean, this little blog was hopping. So, I checked my stats and found out that they were all coming from RickSpringfield.com. Apparently, someone found my site and mentioned it on the Rick Springfield Message Board. Isn't that cool! I mean, what if Rick Springfield actually reads my blog post about him. Not that he probably reads all that stuff, but what if he did? Wouldn't that be cool?! And it would be absolutely fine because I only had good an wonderful things to say about him. Well, except that senior citizen remark. But, it was all in jest, Rick honey. Anyway, I looked on the me...

There are some things that I really miss about going to work. Or even just taking the kids to public school. It's those little moments when you would pass another co-worker or another mom down the hall and you'd stop and have some idle chit-chat. I really miss that. Here's a conversation that I so desperately needed to have with another female the other day.... The scene is me walking down the hall to my office and passing a co-worker: Me: (Stopping). Hey, did you know that Rick Springfield is 58 years old? Co-Worker: I know! I saw him on Oprah the other day. Me: Yeah! And there he is being all Rick Springfield and the guy's 58 years old. How did he get to be 58? That's, like, my dad's age. Co-Worker: I know! What's the world's coming, too? It seems like just yesterday that I was kissing his poster's on my wall..... Me: Yeah, and now he's practically a senior citizen. Both of us are stunned into silence. Me: But he sure looked good. Co-Worker: Sh...

My friend Shara sent me a link to the video below. Wow! I don't know if I'm just an emotional wreck this week or what, but it really moved me. I have to constantly remind myself to not judge people because you never know what they've gone through. We're doing a Women's Bible study on "Becoming a Vessel" and one of the chapters deals with judgement and how we should never be critical of anyone who is walking in the path of God. We have NO idea where they've been, how long they've been on the journey, or how long it took them to get there. Even people that we think have it all planned out and are so perfect... you just never know what hurt lies in their past. You never know what people are going through or what they've been through. Anyway, most of you have probably seen it, but if you haven't, it's really worth watching.

Guess what? It's been ELEVEN days since Nandi has bit me. Isn't that cool? My arms are now turning back to a nice color and all the swelling went down a week ago. Bring on the tank tops and tanning lotion. I can now bare my arms. However.... the biting has been replaced with hurling. As in objects. Hard things. Things that hurt. Basically, anything that can make an impact. Upon hearing the word "No", my little girl will quickly scan the room to find the nearest object to hurl at me. Sigh. This will get better, won't it? And would it be really terrible if I gave her a boomerang to play with??

Right after Sim woke up this morning to go to work, he stuck his head through the door and said, " Uh, you need to get out here ." What??? It's 5:30 in the morning. On a Saturday. You've got to be kidding. And then I heard, " Watch your step ." Crap. No, really. That's all it could be. Literally. Crap. See, my mom has been sick and is in the hospital and we're keeping her two dogs for the next week or so. Hmmmph. I let them out at 11:30 last night, but one of them must've not been feeling good because it was like dodging landmines in our living room. Thank goodness we don't have carpet. Let's add that to the list of "Let's Look at Noah's Autism with a Glass Half Full." Toxins. We pulled up all the carpet to minimize toxins and trapped dirt and all that other gross stuff that hides in there. If we had carpet, I would've been up a creek without a paddle this morning. Of course, now we're dealing with a whole other ...

A few days ago, I took part in Angel's "Get Real Challenge" and mentioned how Nandi has been sleeping in our bed and Sim has been sleeping in Nandi's bed. Here's the deal... Sim cannot sleep in the same bed as Nandi. It doesn't matter if the bed is a mile wide. Nandi will find him, wrap her skinny little legs around him, bury her head in his neck, and sleep that way the whole night. Sounds innocent enough. But she has this thing that she subconsciously does in her sleep. She takes her feet and moves them up and down your leg and gets her toenails right in you. Oh, and she snores. Who'd of known that such a tiny little creature could make such a racket. Anyway, as much as he loves and adores her, it drives Sim up the wall. So he's been sleeping in her empty twin bed so that he can get a good night sleep. Now, you might be asking why we have her in our room to start with. Well, because she has terrible night terrors combined with an intense fear of aban...

If you've been reading my blog for awhile, then you've seen me post a few thoughts on Nikki - a college student up in Canada who I absolutely adore. She has a heart of gold! Nikki's the one who designed my blog and who runs "Blogs for a Cause" as a way to fundraise money for several different charities, and as a way to pay for her volunteer trips to the Dominican Republic. Well, I'm happy to say that after a whole year of fundraising, she raised all the funds necessary to return to the DR and arrived a few days ago. She'll be there for a month volunteering at various special needs orphanages and helping to build houses and schools. You can check out her blog while she's there (she updates frequently) at http://www.heroholiday07.blogspot.com/. I'm so proud of you, Nikki!

As much as I spout off about simplifying and consuming less, there's one place I can't resist... The Dollar Tree. Or, as Sim calls it, "The-Leslie-Can't-Leave-Without-Spending-At-Least-$20 Store". Oh, he is SO right. I try to go only every few months because I always end up coming back with sacks full of cheap plastic things that made sense for me to buy them when I was in the store... but then sit collecting in a corner once I get home. However, I spent all of last night browsing through the Lakeshore Catalog (it's a teacher supply catalog), making this huge unattainable - and unaffordable - wish list... and realized that I could buy or make half the stuff myself. So off to the Dollar Tree... In addition to buying essentials - like toothbrushes (I have a thing about toothbrushes. I feel I have to replace the kids' brushes every month - and it's soooo much cheaper to buy 2 for a $1 this way), I bought some really cool things. Well, I think they're ...

My friend Amy turned me on to a blog that I really like.. The Voice of Adventure . And, Angel, the owner of the blog, issued a challenge yesterday for us to all Get Real and stop sugarcoating things. Well, I don’t think I try to sugarcoat anything. I think everyone and their dog now knows about all the problems we’ve been going through. The saga of the never-ending lice. The biting. The fact that we can’t seem to get Nandini to realize that my arm is not a chew toy. That no matter what I say, I’ve never quite gotten over Noah having autism. My fear that Eli will grow up to be a T-Rex impersonator at children’s birthday parties. However, as I love nothing more than a challenge – and can’t afford therapy (because all our budgeted therapy money goes towards the kids’ therapy)… I am jumping at the chance, once again, to air all our dirty laundry. Because, there is nothing better than getting things off your chest. So, here goes… 1. I am a procrastinator. We leave for OT in 30 minutes an...