Halloweenie

Max as Lightning McQueen, his idol.

Halloweenie, that's me (what, you think I was calling Max a weenie?!). Every year, as much as I look forward to seeing the kids in their cute outfits, I also dread Max's meltdown at our city's Halloween parade. It's not so much a parade as one big sugar-infused madhouse, with kids dashing from store to store getting their candy. Crowds wig Max out. (Ditto for firecrackers, big dogs and Sarah Palin. Oh, wait, that's just me.) Sure enough, he lasted maybe five minutes. Dave took him home, and I wandered my way around with Sabrina. 

Sometimes, I dread the sort of events others look forward to. Birthday parties with Max can be a nightmare, Thanksgiving a stress mess. I think I purposefully expect the worst so I'll be content, even happy, if the outcome isn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. Am I alone here?

I got a nice surprise: Max LOVED trick or treating. He was beside himself with glee when kids showed up at our door, and concentrated so, so hard on picking up candy bars and packages of pretzels from the orange basket on our porch and dropping them into kids' buckets.

Action shot!

Max got the hang of grabbing candy, although I wasn't able to train him to take only peanut butter cups, my favorite.

Sabrina, aka Belle.  

Not to be outdone, Sabrina proceeded to pick up handfuls of candy and give them away to each kid. So we were facing a severe candy crisis by mid-evening. Unlike the economy, it held stable. 

I'm pretty sure I heard Max say "boo" when he saw some pictures of ghosts, which was a real thrill. He has a particularly hard time with "b" and "p," since they require lip closure (bet you're mouthing those letters right now) and his mouth usually hangs slack from lack of muscle control. 

A shout out to Brian, a neighbor who dressed as a man captured by a gorilla. Next to him is Dave, who dressed as a suburban dad. 

Anyway, we all had a great time. So are any of you weenies about your kids and events/celebrations?

  

Max did a happy dance today. And wore jeans.

Max, in his usual pants of choice.  

I walked in the door from work tonight to the usual greeting: Sabrina's "Mommmmmy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" (she's three, so all of her sentences end in multiple exclamation points) and Max's squeals of joy (he's five). My mom's visiting, and she told me that she and Max had been dancing together before I came home. When you're a working mom, you get a little wistful hearing about fun kid stuff you missed during the day, but when you're a working mom with a disabled kid, you get especially wistful. I needed to recreate the dancing scene, so I grabbed the kids' hands and we did Ring Around The Rosie right there in the kitchen. What the heck does that song mean, anyway? "Ashes, ashes, we all fall down"? I just Wikipedia-ed it, entry says it's considered to be a reference to the Bubonic plague. Nice!

Max has cerebral palsy. He can walk; he can express himself nonverbally (typically by shaking his head) and also has some words (his latest one: "jeans"); he's bright. He has trouble using his hands (they're clenched a lot, so that even picking up a crayon takes a lot of concentration), still needs to be spoon fed (but he's trying so hard to feed himself lately) and diapered. These challenges are why I so relish the moments when he's just being a kid doing cute kid things, like dancing in the kitchen. Even when we're celebrating the Bubonic plague. Know what I mean?  

Happy blogday to me and Max—this is our first post, the start of what I hope will be a really meaningful (and helpful and funny and wise-assed) conversation with other moms, and in particular moms of special needs kids. Halloween pics coming tomorrow! Click on back to see Max dressed as his favorite character of all time and share shots of your kids.