bountifulplate

Did anyone else watch the Olympic Women's Gymnastics last night?? The five girls competing are the best in the entire United States.  One of them, Jordyn Wieber, was heavily favored to win Olympic Gold for the Individual All-Around Final title.  Unfortunately, she missed qualifying for one of the two spots.  It was heartbreaking to watch her after she saw the scoreboard and knew she didn't make it.  She was so upset, she started crying.  I'm sure all the moms out there, and especially Jordyn's mom wanted to give her a gigantic hug and say everything is going to be okay.  The last thing in the world she wanted/needed were people taking pictures of her and shoving a microphone in her face. The hours, weeks, months and years it takes to make it to the Olympics are mind boggling. It isn't part of your life, it is your entire life.  Lauren did competitive gymnastics for a handful of years.  She trained about nine hours a week to prepare for competition...

When did walking through a parking lot become so dangerous?!?!?!?!?  This week when I was running errands, I observed bad parking lot "etiquette."  As far as parking garages go, they scare the you know what out of me! They are so noisy, all you hear are screeching brakes.  They echo so much, don't you just want to put on a pair of earplugs?  When I go to a parking garage, I would rather park far away and walk, then get all stressed out when it's time to leave and I have to back up and pull out of the spot.  Lauren, being a new driver, is still learning how to navigate parking lots.  She does my trick of pulling through the spot and have the nose of the car pointing out.  Okay, back to yesterday.  I was walking towards Walmart and saw a car backing out, I had a feeling the driver didn't see me.  Sure enough, I had to stop in my tracks while he pulled his car out of the space.  I guess I looked a little ticked, so he pulled down his window...

I think when you have a special needs child, there are two roads you can go down.  The first road is denial and the second is acceptance.  I believe in taking the latter.  We could sit here and say, "why us? why does our family have to have a child with special needs???" My question back is why not us??  I totally 100% believe that Dominic was given to us for a reason.  I know one reason was to make me not so darn rigid about everything.  I like my order, if something changes, I don't always adapt well. Dominic has taught me that not everything is predictable and orderly.  He does something spontaneous everyday!!  My son has always been affectionate.  He shows us unconditional love.  When he comes home from summer school, most of the time he won't get off the bus until he gives me a kiss :)  The bus driver told me he even gave her a kiss on her cheek!  Lauren, Dominic and my stepson get along like typical siblings, which warm...

Last week when Dominic and I were walking into his music therapy class, I had a mom turn around and give Dominic what I call the "look."  Like some autistic kids, Dominic will randomly start talking to himself.  This mom heard him and turned around, shot me a look of disapproval, turned back around and went into the same building as Dominic and I were going into.  Dominic sometimes (well, a lot of the time) is not a very patient dude and while we were waiting in the hallway, he continued talking to himself.  This mom and her kids were also waiting in the same hallway. I think this woman was wishing she was anywhere but where she was. I guess Dominic was making her kind of uncomfortable.  She was trying her hardest to pretend that Dominic and I didn't exist. There is a little girl with some physical disabilities that has music therapy right before Dominic. She comes out of her therapy and has the biggest smile on her face and is so happy.   She and I al...

We just got back last night from a 10-day car trip out East.  Just about every summer when I was growing up, we would drive down to the Eastern Shore of Maryland or Delaware or make the several hour drive down to Florida.   Back when I was little, there were no Game Boys, Nintendo's, iPads, or iPods to help pass the time in the car.  Just for the heck of it, I counted how many "electronics" we brought with us on our most recent trip.  We counted 12 and that didn't include the GPS. Yikes!! I couldn't believe that we had that many!  On the last couple of trips back East, we drove straight through to Maryland. This time around, we broke up the trip, by stopping around Pittsburgh for a family reunion and then continuing on to Maryland.  On the way back, we stopped in Cleveland and then finished the rest of the drive the next day.  When we got out of the car last night, Lauren said she felt like kissing the ground.  Let's just say, by the time we have ...

Last week, as I was coming down our street towards the stop sign, I saw a boy, maybe about 10 or 11, riding down the sidewalk on his skateboard.  He had no helmet, no arm or knee pads and was on his cell phone.  He was going really fast and I had a feeling he didn't see me in our van.  Sure enough, when I was about 20 feet or so from the stop sign, he flew down a driveway and right in front of my car.  He never looked back, he just went right into the middle of the street, in front of me, to the left and then back in front of my car to the right.  When he went past my car a second time, he hit the curb and fell down.  The whole time, the boy never stopped talking on his cell phone.  After I made sure he was okay, I said, "do you know you rode your bike right in front of my car?"  He was like, "I'm sorry."  I thought he might cuss me out or tell me, "hey, you're not my mother!"  He knew what he did was wrong, I guess.  It made me thi...