Operation Tubetop

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! ONE OF THE BEST DAYS OF THE YEAR! I HOPE THAT ALL YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE TODAY! It is the one day of the year that you can be anybody you want to be. Do whatever you want to do (legally). I have always loved Halloween and I can't wait to party tonight... again. I am heading to the Beaver Brewing Company with a friend and I plan to just have a great time drinking. I am fully recovered from the party on Saturday which is what we call a Halloween miracle. Yesterday was a little touch and go. I woke up after 4 hours of sleep and put on my lucky Blue Jays shirt and got to cleaning. My word was the apartment a complete disaster! I started with the Kid's room (which was the bar area) and worked non-stop for about 6 hours, getting drunk off the fumes from the floors. There were 70 bottles to recycle (proud of my friends) and floors to wash (I had to do it by hand since we ran out of Swiffer pads. I've never washed floors by hand. This was a new experience. I pre...

Oh boy. I am  stressed. But also a little excited. Mostly stressed. And a little sick to my stomach. Since I don't have enough going on (obvious sarcasm), I decided to go ahead and organize a movie afternoon for Autism in Vienna. For the past couple of years I have dreamed of taking the Kid to the movies. Yes, realistically I know he would probably only last for about 5 minutes, but what really has held me back is the fact that we would probably have to deal with death stares and people yelling at him to shut it. While I could not care less what people think when we are in public, I do not want to ruin everybody else's grand ole time by me breaking down in tears and screaming a la Jada Pinkett Smith in Scream 2 . So, after hearing about movie theaters in the States and Canada offering special sensory friendly afternoons primarily for families dealing with autism, I decided to put together an afternoon for the community here. For the past 24 hours I have been e-mailing a ve...

See title of post. Yaaaas. It is Sunday afternoon and in a few hours, I will see the Kid again! His grandparents were kind enough to take him this weekend and I didn't even realize how desperately I needed to vegetate. On Friday afternoon the Husband and I went to Wien Museum and then stopped at a beisl for dinner. Then we headed home to watch Bulle von Tölz and drool on ourselves in exhaustion. I passed out just after 10 and slept over 10 glorious hours. I thought I would feel re-energized but I didn't so I just shuffled to the sofa and spent another 6 hours watching crap TV, responding to e-mails and messages and once in a while heading to the kitchen for food. At 4 I got dressed and headed to the Hilton Plaza to whore myself out.. ha, joking, I'm past my prime... I went to the hotel to meet an old family friend. Last time I saw her I was nine years old and we were living in Düsseldorf. I put on my Chanel purse, a lot of make up and jumped on the tram. As I took a sea...

I was feeling a little rough this morning. I had had a late night which I will talk about in a bit. But first, YAAAAY! My article for XOJane was published!!! I had been checking the site all week to see if it had been put up and then this morning, it was there! I have always dreamed of being published on a website I read often. I don't think I ever imagined it would be about autism... I kind of thought more "I accidentally ended up as a high end escort" or "Pizza Diet!" I am super excited about this! There are some not so nice comments... this is the Internet, I am not surprised. But one thing that seems to come up a couple of times is people saying that ABA Therapy is torture for children. This could not be further from the truth in our home. Number 1, we are not repressing his "stimming" (this is a repetitive movement often done by people with autism) and Number 2, he is never ever forced to do something he does not want to do. Our therapist is f...

I had to do a heart breaking thing this morning: write an e-mail to a school we had applied to about 4 years ago. I remember registering for the school with such excitement, imagining the Kid's first day of school, confident he would be a bright and engaged student. It was a school I had dreamed about sending him to. And every morning I walk by it on my way to work. But life throws you curve balls. It's not the school itself, it's the symbolism of it all... to know that he will most likely never have a normal life and that is what cuts me right in the heart.  I know people ask what is "normal" and by that I mean, if something were to happen and when it does, to the Husband and I when he is older, he would probably end up in a home. Those are the concrete worries of a parent with a child with special needs. I love the Kid more than anything in this world and I wouldn't change him. Autism has turned my life upside down but in a way, has made me so much more grat...

Hello Tuesday! After work I will be heading to the Yoga Loft for another hot yoga session. When I get back home, the Kid will be heading to bed and I will take a bath because my muscles have revolted. I have almost successfully completed Day 5 of my personal Boot Camp! Since Friday I have done 2 sessions of hot yoga (3 after this evening), two 5k runs as well as push ups, sit ups and planks. Tomorrow morning I have another 5k and kill me now. I feel like this a good push for me to get fit again. I am also incredibly happy that I am able to mostly run for the whole 30 minutes and my heel seems to be ok. So I am totally winning at life right now. And maybe I had some m&m's for lunch but I don't want to talk about it. In terms of the Kid and his freak outs-maybe-tantrums, I am happy to report that we had a fit-free weekend. I followed our great therapist's advice and spent the weekend distracting him whenever he started to get kvetchy. Sunday afternoon he was just on t...

Hello Saturday! Hope it is treating you all well! I am just about to have to some lunch and then I will clean up the apartment and then take the Kid for a walk. For the first time in I don't know how long, the Kid slept in his bed to WHOLE ENTIRE NIGHT! I woke up at 6 a.m. and checked my clock and had a mini panic attack not to find him in our bed. I checked on him and he was curled up still in his bed in a deep sleep. I of course may or may not have accidentally woken him up while checking his pulse. But huzzah to a real night of sleep! HUZZAH, I say! He came and snuggled in our bed for a little while and then I put on some unforgiving spandex and headed to the Yoga Loft for some early morning hot yoga. On Thursday I stayed at home because the Kid had been under the weather since Tuesday night. Wednesday night he woke up at 3 in the morning and refused to fall asleep again so we both stayed home on Thursday. The Nanny came in the afternoon so that gave me some free time. I dro...

Well Happy Yom Kippur... Actually, we don't say "Happy" because there is nothing happy about not eating. I made it until about midday with the fasting. Bad Jew! Bad! I was at work and usually you are supposed to stay at home and reflect on the past year and atone for your sins. Since I am saving all of my days off, I had to go to work and that meant having to use some of my brain and without food? No bueno. So again, hope you all had a serious and thoughtful Yom Kippur. The Husband is out tonight and it is me and the Kid. Yesterday he was perfect and today the Nanny said he was great save for a nap. But of course when I got home, he started getting kvetchy so I went proactive and offered him everything in the apartment he is usually not allowed to play with because this Mommy be tired, yo. We still have no idea why he had 3 fits over the weekend. I assumed he was coming down with something on Monday but he was fine all day. I thought maybe his stomach was upset but he ate...

Sup Sunday? I am going on very few hours of sleep. The Kid has been up off and on since 1 a.m. We have no idea why and he seems to be in good spirits today but we want to curl into the fetal position and cry from exhaustion. Yesterday was a pretty horrific day with the Kid. He had two separate freak outs... they were a combination of tantrums that turned into freak outs and it was a nightmare. But so far today he seems to be in a better mood. Fingers crossed. We just got back from an hour walk around the neighbourhood to try and work out the extra angst. It was the first time we went on a real walk without the stroller. For us the stroller is a safety blanket.. for the Kid, it's his pope mobile. We decided to take advantage of the nice Fall weather and he was a super star: happy as a clam and not once trying to take off. I am very proud of him and we felt a tiny slice of normalcy on that awesome walk. Golf claps all round for us! This afternoon a woman is coming by to meet the Kid....

Well, hello Tuesday night! The past week has been a bit of a whirlwind: busy and filled with me being sick. After the Night Run I came down with a very bad cold. I stayed home on Thursday and spent the majority of it on the sofa, feeling sorry for myself. The Husband had the day off and apparently I was in such a deep sleep that I didn't even notice the doorbell ring. Who was at the door? A registered letter from the Po Po. It was a letter about my Verein registration which stated that I have a Vorstandsmangel. I don't think this is contagious but I am going to look into it. I have been summoned to the police station on the 10th of October and I am not looking forward to it. Last time I was at a police station in Vienna, it was because some stupid-ass traffic beam hit me on the nose during our company's fire alarm. They called an ambulance and while I was fine, my pride wasn't. Months later I had to go to the police station and close the file. They asked me if I wanted ...