I have been busy today. Busy at work, busy commuting, busy freaking out over wedding plans, busy getting the invitations prepared and sent out.
What this means is that today, I do not have time to write.
Instead, I offer you this picture of my children riding a polar bear.
Polar Bear riding!
Someone once told me that you know an idea is good when someone steals it. I am stealing the Wordless Wednesday idea from my friend Amy. I hope she doesn’t mind and that she feels flattered!
There is something special about the bond between brothers, and for today’s post, I want to offer you some pictures of my two boys – very special brothers indeed.
Driving Lessons (2007)
Sleeping Beauties (2007)
Winter Fun! (2008)
Drinking Buddies (2008)
All Aboard Thomas The Train! (2008)
Water Play (2010)
The Greatest Love Of All (2010)
Someone once told me that you know an idea is good when someone steals it. I am stealing the Wordless Wednesday idea from my friend Amy. I hope she doesn’t mind and that she feels flattered!
There is something special about the bond between brothers, and for today’s post, I want to offer you some pictures of my two boys – very special brothers indeed.
Driving Lessons (2007)
Sleeping Beauties (2007)
Winter Fun! (2008)
Drinking Buddies (2008)
All Aboard Thomas The Train! (2008)
Water Play (2010)
The Greatest Love Of All (2010)
These pictures were taken during the Best Holiday Ever, back in 2008. Gerard and I packed the boys up along with five hundred of their favourite belongings, and drove down to New York. While we were on the road, my mother was in the air, flying in from South Africa. We all met up at my brother’s Manhattan apartment, spent a night there, and then drove to Long Island the following day, where we spent two of the happiest and most carefree weeks I can remember.
We planned the crap out of this vacation: knowing how all of the changes associated with vacations can affect a child with autism, we had to be prepared. There was some concern that we were “overplanning”.
It paid off, though. Thanks to all of the planning, George had all of his routines in place, along with all of the things associated with those routines, even though we were in unfamiliar surroundings.
The house we stayed in (borrowed from a friend of my brother’s) was a hit. The beach was a hit. Most of all, being with my mom and my brother made the vacation something truly special.
Negotiating early morning Manhattan traffic at the end of a 12-hour drive
Almost there! Driving to my brother's apartment.
George gazing off into the distance
James, enjoying his first time on a real beach!
Drawing in the sand with James
George on tippy-toes - love this picture!
James watches as I bury George in the sand (Mom and brother are in the background)
Like I said, it was the Best Vacation Ever. I even got to go running a couple of times!
Do you remember the days when we used to take pictures with cameras that required film? When all 34 pictures on the film had been used up we would take it to the drugstore for processing and pick it up three days later (eventually, drugstores got their own in-store processing equipment and the concept of “one hour pictures” was born). We would go home and look at the pictures, only six of which were any good, and we would throw them into a cardboard box already containing seventeen thousand other pictures. Every time we put the box back in the closet we would say to ourselves, “I must buy albums and get these photos organized”, but we would know that the pictures wouldn’t be looked at for at least six years, when the bottom of the box would collapse and all of the pictures would fall onto the ground.
Things are so much easier now. We just take the picture, plug either the camera or the SD card into a slot on the computer, and ten seconds later the pictures are there for our viewing pleasure. We print the ones we want to print. Mostly, though, we make desktop backgrounds out of them, upload them to Facebook, and email them to friends and family. There are no pesky films that cost a fortune and get all screwed up if you open the camera at the wrong time, no dusty old cardboard boxes that take up space, and no pictures lying around that we cannot bring ourselves to throw out even though the top of the subject’s head is cut off and the red-eye makes everyone look like minions of Satan.
The thing is, we look at the pictures. If we don’t like them, we can edit them, remove the red-eye, fix up the lighting. And if we really don’t like them, we just hit the Delete button. Easy-peasy. The point is, we end up with pictures that we actually like and enjoy looking at.
And that’s what I was doing earlier today. I was looking at pictures of my kids from when they were a lot younger and littler, and marveling about how they’ve grown and changed since the pictures were taken.
Here are a few of my favourites…
George, age 3
James' first Halloween, aged 10 months. He was a pirate!
Family picture taken on Gerard's birthday, 2006. George was almost 3, James was 8 months
George (almost 4) and James (19 months)
James, about 15 months
George, aged about 3 1/2 - a rare shot of him looking into the camera
Ah, how they grow up!
I find myself unable to write today. It’s not that I have nothing to write about. Material is plentiful – I just spent the day at a phenomenally good autism conference, at which I learned a lot and met some valuable contacts who could potentially help me to help George to help himself.
But that will be another post for another day.
Today my mind is in a dark place, one that I really don’t want it to be in. I cannot write about this dark place, and because I am currently consumed by it, I cannot write at all. I need to focus my energy on snapping out of this funk. In an attempt to lighten the mood, however, I will share a picture that makes me laugh every time I see it, no matter how bad I might be feeling.
This is a picture of George when he was a few months old. You gotta admit, the facial expression is priceless.
George, thinking - what, exactly?
I will be back tomorrow…
