The Fluffy Stuff

Wow, turn around for a second and it's been 11 days since you last blogged.

I never told you this, blogosphere, but I had been toying with the idea of writing a 25 days of Christmas blog...or rather blogs, since there would have to be 25 of them. But then I couldn't narrow down the theme enough to make it feel manageable...and then, well, it turns out that I had almost nothing to blog about for nearly half of the month, so I guess it's good that I didn't take on that particular challenge. Whew.

Not to say that the contents of my last blog were nothing, mind you. In fact, I thought I might have to make a very special appointment with my therapist in order to process that bit of information (therapy has been put on hiatus), but as with most things, it fades with each morning that I wake up. Now I'd say it's been moved from my mental "examples of failure to protect unborn children" file and put in the "possible explanations for Owen's autism" folder...which is to say that it's soaking into the fabric of my daily existence...which is okay.

Man, I hate it when serious stuff creeps into what I think are going to be light and fluffy blogs. Well, in an effort to balance out the heft of the beginning of this entry, let's talk about reality television, shall we?

Danny won Biggest Loser by losing more than half of his original body weight in, what, less than 6 months? There's no way that can be healthy, but it sure does make for good TV. Plus, Shay gets to come back and get paid $1000 for every additional POUND she loses! Forget health, Subway knows how to motivate.

Top Chef Las Vegas is also over and the egomaniac won. This displeases me. I feel like they were all fairly equal in terms of culinary talent and therefore one of the two nice guys should have taken the grand prize. But did you see this interview with the winning Voltaggio? Did he say he has children or is he speaking in the future tense? Because I don't remember ever hearing about any children and it makes me a little sad to think he might have some, but never mentioned them. Oh, and on one other Top Chef-related note, did you hear about this? It's like my dreams became television producers.

The Amazing Race also came to an exciting close. Perhaps to make up for Top Chef's change of locales for the finale (or not), it ended in Las Vegas! I have to say it was one of my favorite Amazing Race finales even though it didn't have all the suspense of making them fly from, say, Alaska to Hawaii mid-leg. It was no surprise who won, but it was still fun. My Sunday nights now feel empty.

Somehow it's already time for the finale of So You Think You Can Dance. I feel like the auditions took longer than the competition. My favorite part of this season was the guest appearance of The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers. Not that some of the contestants aren't great dancers, but those guys seem to defy gravity. As for picking a winner, I like Legacy and Russell, but I don't really care that much.

And over in the category of happy returns, both Intervention and Hoarders are back! Hooray for dysfunction and mental illness! I know, I know, but how can you possibly look away? Plus, sometimes they get better, which makes it all okay, right? Right?

There's more, I'm sure, but my Tivo is calling me.

Extracurriculars

Even though it’s barely even July, I already I have to figure out what the boys are doing this fall. I mean, in addition to kindergarten (!), of course.

The easy answer would be “nothing.” They don’t have to be involved in any extracurriculars…it would be cheaper and less chaotic to be sure. Except, Aidan really wants to learn hip-hop dancing (thank you, “So You Think You Can Dance”) and I feel compelled to balance out Aidan’s activity by signing Owen up for something.

Plus, now that they are five I’m trying to encourage separate interests when possible. They are already SO competitive over everything, that I think it would be good for them each to have their own “thing.” However, figuring out what those “things” should be is proving difficult, as Aidan wants to try everything and Owen has a “me too!” attitude about everything Aidan does.

I’m trying to decide whether or not to put Owen in a social skills class (that is, if I can find one without a waitlist). I know it’s something he needs to work on, but part of me thinks he gets better practice when thrown into activities with “typical” kids. I’m not saying learning to hold a real conversation isn’t a valuable skill, but I’m wondering if it’s a skill he could build on while also learning something else.

As usual, I feel underqualified to make these decisions…but my gut is telling me we should try him out on piano. Concert pianists don’t really need to be good conversationalists, right?

**Special note: Check out Judith's Autismville blog today. See? I'm not crazy! Or, at least, it's going around...the more the merrier, I say.**