Recovering Noah

In re-reading numbers 1-5 in my Top 10 Ways that Modern Conveniences Have Made Life With Autism Easier, I realized that I probably come across a complete lazy cow. A tad bit of that is true. But, really, these conveniences – and a lot of them involve never having to leave my house or car – have made life easier. You see, when you have a child with autism, everything has to be planned out in advance. For example, it’s better to not buy a whole grocery cart full of stuff at Walmart because that way I can nip through the Express Lane… which is good for three reasons… 1. 1, I can normally check-out in under 10 minutes (depending on the queue) 2. 2, The Express Lane doesn’t have cold drinks stocked on their aisle, which means Noah’s not sitting in a basket waiting for me to check-out while grabbing for Dr. Peppers 3. 3. I don’t have to worry about how I’m going to stuff all the grocery sacks around Noah while he sits in the back of the cart. Speaking of which... anot

I’m really not good at much of anything. If I were 18 and applying to colleges, my list of talents would have to read something like this… “ I excel at watching reality television, looking up things on Amazon.com, and feeding my insane need for instant knowledge by being Wikipedia’s #1 looker-upper.” That’s kind of sad, isn’t it? But my biggest talent is in the ability to throw myself one heck of a pity party. I mean, I really do need my own show on TLC to show you all how it’s done. It’s complete with sobbing and raccoon eyes and copious amounts of nasty snot and Kleenex with Slowdive on the stereo, and anything within my reach that even remotely looks like chocolate. I once gnawed away at a bar of almond bark during a self-imposed pity party. And we know there’s not a lick of cocoa to be found in the cheap stuff. But if got me through. But during one of my one or two or six pity parties that I’ve thrown in the last 4 , 3 , 2 weeks, I had an epiphany. It was like the voice of G