Nonconsecutive Gratitude - Remote Controls

Being grateful for remote controls should probably be easy for anyone. Anyone over the age of 30 that is.

The first TV that I remember is sketchy on detail like make and model, but I remember exactly where it was placed. We can’t have been the only family to have a great big nonfunctioning wooden console TV in the living room. And if that’s true then we certainly can’t have been the only ones to place the new TV right on top of the old one. But how many of y’all had a nice lace doily between them? The point is that there was no remote control for either one of them. So it’s time to chillax and you’ve gotten the rabbit ears situated. You’ve burrowed deep into the corner of the couch. And you realize after a long commercial break that Knots Landing doesn’t come on this channel. Oh, the humanity!

Of course, once you got up and stumbled over to the TV set(s) at least you only had three or maybe four channels to try before you found your choice in programming. Now re-adjust the rabbit ears. Tweak the vertical hold knob. And then burrow back into the couch with a blanket in your hand and hope in your heart. At this point fate would decide your further viewing. If this wasn’t the channel that Carson came on then you would just watch Arsenio. And heaven help if the volume wasn’t high enough. Y’all can just strain your ears ‘cause I ain’t getting back up.

The next TV we bought was a very sweet Panasonic with cool clicky chrome buttons. But it didn’t have a remote either. This one got some of that cable-vision hooked up to it. This was a good thing in the sense that there was more to watch, but a decidedly bad thing in that by this time I was old enough to stand beside it and tap the chrome “Channel +” button until something was declared good. They don’t make TV’s that solid anymore. It kept humming along in our frugal household until well after remote controls had become commonplace. It was still in the living room when I left for college. No kidding.

Fast forward to the present and everything from the ceiling fan down has a remote. When we moved into our first house we had a TV, satellite receiver, DVD player, and VCR all hooked up together. The four remotes were lined up on the coffee table like little entertainment soldiers, aimed and ready to fire. We went from controller poverty to an embarrassment of remote riches. But our story doesn’t end here.

Behold the universal remote! Now this is a thing for which to be thankful. Especially in a house with something like six children or so. When they lose the remote, it’s never to be found again. If I had to track down a manufacturer replacement remote then there would be trouble. The trouble being that I am as frugal as my parents were. So we would have no remote and my kids would get to learn what my childhood was like.

Nonconsecutive Gratitude - Shower Thoughts

You know what shower thoughts are. Maybe you haven’t thought of them this way, but if you shower and you think, then you’re having shower thoughts. It’s the mind wandering in the midst of a routine task. Shower thoughts aren’t entirely different from driving thoughts or dishwashing thoughts. But there’s more privacy and less distraction. This ramps up the profundity.

Many shower thoughts are to-do’s that you recognize the need for, but that you will forget before you dry off. Some of them are things you should’ve said. There in the steam you will hone the words knowing that you actually wouldn’t have said them. Some of them are reminiscences with running commentary. Some are skillful legal arguments to excuse a regret. Some of them are profound in a dumb way. Like this one from Redditor Gpig16:

“Jerky is more like an animal cracker than animal crackers are.”

Well, maybe that’s actually dumb in a profound way. I’m only speaking for myself here, but I am at least three notches funnier in the shower than in real life. I’ve concocted stage-ready comedy routines about the shampoo ingredients. I had myself plumb tickled with a bit I invented about the lonely useless decorative bathroom towel. Other times I explain things to imaginary shower audiences. Maybe it’s a way of processing things that I’m learning. Maybe I just like to hear myself think.

And I’ve spent tons of lottery money in the shower but way more while driving. There’s no Mega Millions billboards in my shower after all. I don’t play the lottery, but if I ever were to win, then I’ve got a lot of the tough decisions already made. I’ve held a lot of high-level negotiations in the shower too. Often my singular expertise are needed by the highest echelons of state and corporate leadership. This may be straying from shower thought into make believe, but it’s nonetheless instructive.

Is it possible that the cultural fact (and subreddit for that matter) of shower thoughts is owing to the fact that the shower is the only place that any of us get any peace and quiet? Is this the kind of thinking that people did all the time before the invention of the car radio? We can’t even absent-mindedly watch TV anymore because of smartphones. I bet the Amish still have just a constant procession of shower-type contemplations.

I’m grateful for shower thoughts or driving thoughts or mowing-the-grass thoughts because of their clarity. When you realize something important or maybe something troubling, you can’t run from it or distract yourself. You’ve got a head covered in shampoo and you’re gonna have to face facts. I’ve latched onto some pretty important spiritual realities this way. I’ve got a long commute and many times as the asphalt has droned underneath me, the heavens have opened above me. I’ve made life-changing resolutions while occupied with perfectly banal tasks. And other times I’ve had earth-shattering thoughts like:

If you think you miss the 80’s, try being a soulful saxophone soloist.

Nonconsecutive Gratitude - Mowing the Grass*

What CAN'T Jeremy Be Grateful For?

On Tuesdays and Thursdays we're gonna answer the question, "How in the world can Jeremy be grateful for _______?" The blank is up to you to fill. Leave your suggestions in the comments below or find me on Instagram @nonconsecutive

Upon having a son some men rush to the sporting goods store for a mitt. Others purchase the junior-sized fishing pole and still others open a 529 college savings plan. I suppose all fathers have ambitions for their sons. Mine is getting the grass mowed. I don’t want to set the bar too high for the boy. It’s self-serving you say? What do you think, those other guys are playing baseball and fishing out of a sense of moral duty? Well, the 529 guy maybe.

Anyhow, we need to go back a ways. When I was getting on towards middle school, my family moved into a house with a half-acre yard. The mowing of this large yard would be my charge. It was essentially flat and basically square and completely fenced-in. The soil was rich and the grass was caterpillar. And the growing season felt like it was eleven and a half months of the year.

When I initially assumed my duties, the lawn tool I received was a self-propelled push mower. The bulky self-propelling mechanism on top of the machine didn’t actually work, but its added weight did make turning around at the end of each row more difficult. I grew strong of back and numb of hand mowing those heavy rows every Saturday. We acquired a rider by and by. It had a wide deck and a strong engine and, owing to some sort of collision, only turned left. It wouldn’t so much as veer to the right, but it was the industry’s first zero-turn left-hand mower. The battle was no less hard, but it had gone from infantry to strategy. Failure to plan would mean being stuck in a corner or having to double back on a row. Since I had very many much better things to be doing on Saturday there was no time to waste on re-work, and I became painstakingly tactical.

Years later I would move north and buy a house of my own with a half-acre yard. It was almost exactly the same except without the fence and with some sort of poison exuding from the soil. Whether it was a change in me or the change of locale I cannot say, but one thing was sure, I was suddenly and alarmingly allergic to grass. After a session of mowing it was like someone had taken a rubber mallet and beaten fiberglass insulation into all of my head holes. And I would be down for 20 hours at a clip.

So how can I be grateful for mowing the grass? Because it’s past tense. I’ve got some people in my life who show me great kindness lawn-wise. I hide inside, not even going near the doors or windows while I hear the mower running. As for my son, he will never feel the crushing pressure from his old man to achieve on the ball field. He will never get dragged out of bed while the stars are still twinkling to go shiver in a rowboat. And he will surely never have a funded 529 plan. My sole ambition for him is to get out there and get that grass knocked down.

Suggested by Jane LaTour

Nonconsecutive Gratitude - Mrs. Mitchell

When I was in fourth grade I brought to school a discarded pair of my Grandpa’s Air Force issued eyeglasses. They were aviator style glasses - the ones without the customary curve to the earpiece. My Grandpa was not an aviator and I did not require corrective lenses, yet there I was sitting at my desk wearing aviator glasses and getting a headache. What could possess an elementary school boy to do such a thing? Duh, a girl.

Katie was the brown-haired kewpie doll that sat a couple of seats down from me. She and I were an item in the simplest, most innocent possible sense of the term. We liked each other. And Katie had been prescribed glasses halfway through the school year. I watched her awkwardly pry their case open and put them on, never raising her gaze from her lap. Maybe it was my heart aching that Katie was self-conscious or maybe it was just an attempt to score brownie points, but the next day I casually donned Grandpa’s aviators.

Mrs. Mitchell was our teacher. In the course of her duties she was walking amongst us, perhaps handing out worksheets or taking up homework. She got to me. She stood over my little desk, her hands busy with the papers. She had seen the glasses and I felt a slight twinge of embarrassment. She said that she didn’t know that I wore glasses. I gave a half-baked explanation as my ears warmed. She glanced over at Katie and then back at me and then continued passing out papers. Or maybe collecting papers, I don’t remember.

But I do remember the relief I felt. Not the relief in my eyes and forehead when I finally took the glasses off later. The relief that Mrs. Mitchell walked on wordlessly. I didn’t have the sophistication at the time to think of her perspective on it, I just knew she had walked on and that was that. Imagine what I must’ve looked like squinting through those 50’s era government-issued spectacles. Imagine the foolhardy audacity of my plot. But she just walked on. She could’ve crushed me with public correction. She could’ve scarred me with ridicule and derision. But she just walked on.

Later in the school year we came to the point in our science curriculum that would teach us about the universe springing uncaused from nothing and man’s ascent from lesser species by blind chance. She went over the details from the textbook. Then in the front of her public school classroom, sitting halfway on a barstool with one foot on the carpet, she made a modest declaration. She said that while this was the teaching approved by the administration, she didn’t hold to it personally. She said that she believed that God had created all that we know. I had been taught the same thing at home, so it only surprised me in the way that she said it. She, who dealt so gently with even preposterous ophthalmological assertions, was different somehow. She was bold, even if quietly so. She was mildly insurgent.

I’m so thankful for Mrs. Mitchell. The impact that she had on my life continues nearly thirty years later. Sometimes she walked on without a word and sometimes she took a stand.

Nonconsecutive Gratitude - Gold Teeth*

What CAN'T Jeremy Be Grateful For?

On Tuesdays and Thursdays we're gonna answer the question, "How in the world can Jeremy be grateful for _______?" The blank is up to you to fill. Leave your suggestions in the comments below or find me on Instagram @nonconsecutive

Maybe it’s a generational thing, but my most immediate association of a gold tooth is Joe Pesci in Home Alone. I love the way the fabulous director, John Hughes, had light glint off of the tooth when Joe was in the cop uniform and smiling at Kevin. You’ve got to love the panicked way Pesci realizes it’s missing later. And how can you not love the way the beautiful Katherine O’Hara finds the tooth and visibly ponders what exactly she has found?

Do old school gold fronts count in the same way as Pesci’s tooth? You know fronts, AKA grills, those clip in tooth covers for adding bling and swag to your smile? I knew a guy once that bought some 14k fronts on a whim. I mean, how many among us have not heard the siren song of amateur cosmetic dentistry? He said that they fit in a technical sense, but that they became exceedingly uncomfortable after a few minutes. Imagine that. Certain hip-hop notables have gone around the bend with the gold teeth and are now sporting diamond encrustations. Braces caused my middle-school friends to have abrasions on their inner lips. What must princess cut stones do?

I might hazard a guess that at some point in dentistry’s past there was a more (legitimate) reason for gold in the mouth. Before it gave you street cred it gave you hygienic fillings. It sounds a little scammy, I know.

“So doc, ya say I’ve got holes in my teeth? What in the world can ya fill them holes with do ya reckon?”

“Uh, well . . . I’m not exactly . . . GOLD! Yeah, gold is uh . . . safer and . . . so forth.”

It probably didn’t go down like that. There was probably some trial and error. Maybe even some deliberation. Perhaps a scholarly paper in a peer-reviewed journal of dentistry. The Benefits of Gold as an Elemental Filling and Coating for Cavities and Replacement: All That Glitters is Not Molar.

I’m not trying to blow my own whistle here, but I only have one filling. I’m a man of a certain age, and I’ve only had the need to have addressed one tiny pinhole in a noncritical tooth. I actually don’t know what tooth it’s in. My tooth health is so primo that I can’t even specify the one incisor that had the lone issue of my oral history. I’m grateful for a mouth devoid of decay. But I’m not sure the congratulations should go to my brushing technique. And I know that it can’t be the flossing. Because other than at the dentist and in the terrified 24 hours immediately following a visit, I have not flossed. I don’t gargle. I don’t mouthwash. You hate me, don’t you.

I’m of the opinion that tooth health has a huge genetic component. Some folks just have tooth enamel that’s harder than trigonometry. Some people have some baller enzyme action preventing the sugar bugs from wreaking their havoc. I don’t know what my dental advantage is, but I sure am grateful for it.

Nonconsecutive Gratitude - Dining Common

I didn’t come by my rotund figure by accident. I loves me some food. I know this doesn’t make me special amongst humankind, but it’s nevertheless true. There’s an art to getting your grub on. And please understand from the outset that I don’t practice this art in a strictly gourmet setting. I like fine dining just fine. But I like Hamburger Helper every bit as much. Y’all don’t know nothing about Tuna Tetrazzini. I’ve had caviar and sashimi, and they were both terrific. Can they keep up with the Double Whopper with cheese? Barely. And you may as well know that I am a chips and dip sommelier. Pair the barbecue Lays with straight-up sour cream and thank me later. The Quincy’s restaurant in the town where I grew up made a steak sandwich that haunts me after twenty years.

Suffice it to say, I’ve been known to munch a bunch. And when I think about really throwing down on some groceries, there’s one place that stands out: the University Dining Common.

Room and board included unlimited access to the Dining Common, and fortunately it was only open at traditional meal times. Who knows what dietary havoc could have been wrought otherwise. There was a salad bar where you could make the unhealthiest salads imaginable. My go-to was tons of chopped ham, shredded cheese, and boiled eggs with a dash of iceberg lettuce. Sometimes I would sprinkle in some julienned carrots. There were soda fountains and tea. But then there was chocolate milk. Yes, I was 19 years old, so what? One fall they accidentally mixed the chocolate milk with some egg nog. I drank enough to float a pontoon boat.

There were all manner of entrees from the plumb ordinary, like spaghetti with meat sauce, to the wildly esoteric, like Welsh Rarebit. There was a special buzz around campus when word got out that the famous fried chicken fingers would be served for Sunday lunch. It was shoulder to shoulder in the serving lines until the last tender was tendered. There were a variety of sandwiches at weekday lunch: cheeseburgers, chicken patties, and even a pulled-pork barbecue deal. It was those barbecue sammiches that my friend Jamey and I contended over once. I bested him by finishing five. What a day that was.

When it comes down to it, I’m not sure if it was the Dining Common that I was so thankful for. Looking back I realize that the real gift was a metabolism that could process such indulgences. Without so much as a jumping jack or calorie count I could consume bushels with apparent impunity. But it was more than just the food. I’m thankful for the friends that I gathered with there. I’m grateful for the University that comprised the common. And I’ll never stop counting my lucky stars for the fateful lunch date at the common when I met the woman who would become my wife.

Guess Who's Back!

-from Jeremy

A gap in communication is one of those things that vary in acceptance depending on the relationship. I can go for a long time without talking to a State Trooper and it doesn't bother me. If I go a few hours without talking to Christy, then I lose my bearings a little. I don't know where this blog ranks in those standings, but I think by any measure it's been too long.

Some of you may well ask why we have abandoned our post (tee hee, pun intended), and some of you may not have noticed at all. There is no one reason why the spigot of hilarity and reality was squelched - it's the conspiracy of the mundane. Everything in life can pile up on you at times, right? For us, the pile consists mostly of feces with some mental illness sprinkled on top.

So, if you're curious about the 2nd-grade-aged boy running around my backyard in nothing but the skin the good Lord gave him for covering, yes, that is one of my sons. If your mind is of the steel-trap variety and you clench onto the question of, "what happens if he poops?" then your answer would be, "familiar calamity." He doesn't like clothes. And since he has endured more pain and difficulty in his short 7 years than most of you have known in your entire family tree, he gets to be naked in the backyard if he wants. I assume in the preceding statement that your family tree doesn't comprise surviving genocide or multiple generations living under the same bridge.

Josiah occasionally poops in the yard. Yes, from time to time the unthinkable becomes reality. I actually prefer the carport poop to the grass by the fence poop, but opinions will vary. Christy will likely say that the grass provides a natural mechanism to bio-degradation, but I like to know where poop is in relation to my feet, and therefore prefer the concrete. The tricky one is the traveler. This is a road-trip of a poop that may start in the shady environs of the carport but then move through the driveway and end by the swing set.

If we get lucky, then we catch him in the act. He is never allowed to be alone, yet watching him jump and holler in the yard can wear on the senses, so some of his guards will distract themselves. Olivia is more bookish than even myself, and our shared downfall is the page-turner that becomes the turd-smeller. Christy loves her some social media on her iPhone, but often will get a friend request she wasn't expecting. Jack doesn't require outside influence to be distracted - he is perpetually distracted. Jack can be literally standing on the offensive element and not realize it's disposition. As I've told him many times, in that father voice I've learned to affect, "one day you're gonna get hit by a bus."

Why do we put up with it? Why don't we do something? Well, what? After you've chased him down and diapered him for the umpteenth time, you start to feel like a Republican Congressman and just give up. You tell yourself that he pooped earlier and maybe you'll get lucky. Such delusion. You become dulled by his repetitious activity and think he won't deviate. A fool's paradise. Then he gets still all at once and it's all over but the Clorox.

Listen closely, my beloved. He was gonna die. You heard me, the doctors at the prestigious university medical center had given us a small chance at him surviving. Yes, we had heard the same thing about his brother Jack a few years before, but one is not bold in these matters. He was in a tight spot, medically speaking. We were terrified. We trusted God. We prayed that our little boy not escape our grasp as soon as he fell into it. Just let him live, Lord. And he lived. And he is still living! He's a fruitcake with nuts for icing, but he's ours and he's an answer to prayer.

So I put the question to any of you with precious little ones that are the apple of your eye. Would you rather them be snatched from your life or poop in your yard? I think I know the answer.



*For those parents looking for tips on how to prevent fecal smearing, check out our post entitled Poo Diggers. These outfits have been tremendously helpful, but, in the heat of the summer, Josiah insists on stripping when outside. And for NOW....it's not worth the meltdown.

Happy 40th Dad and Mom!

-from Christy

I can't think of a better post to write than this one upon our return to the blog. We have had a long break for various reasons that will be explained in future posts, but today I want to focus on two people who make living with Autism a little easier every day.

My Daddy and Mama started dating when he was in college and she was in high school. Mama's brother John Lee was my Daddy's roommate at Bob Jones University. Mama has often told me that she knew she wanted to marry my Daddy when she was just fifteen years old. Today marks their 40th year of marriage, but, in some ways, I bet they feel like it was just yesterday when he took her on his college dating outing.

I had a blessed childhood, and my parents made a home full of faith, love, and service. They argued infrequently, and, when they did disagree, they made up quickly. They taught my older brothers and me the importance of loving God, loving each other, and loving others. If someone was to ask me to pinpoint the single most influential lesson my parents taught me, it would be "to do my best in whatever God calls me to for the glory of God and the eternal good of others." My Daddy always says to Finish well.

Often I think about the fact that my parents are not just grandparents to children with special needs. They are also parents to a daughter and son-in-law who have some pretty unique needs. They have had to actively parent me far longer than they probably ever imagined, but they have done this in love without ever complaining. When we need them, they are always there. They choose to help us in practical ways that make a huge difference in our ability
to just keep going. My parents greatest desire is to see us Finish well.

How does all this relate to Autism? I thank God every day that my parents taught me to focus on eternity. This life is not all there is. God has a perfect plan for us and our children, and we can trust in that on good days and bad. My parents have a marriage that has stood the test of time and trials. They have experienced joy and sorrow together, and their example is one that gives me such confidence in God's sovereignty and love for His children. They are the best parents and grandparents I know. They give me an even greater desire to Finish well.

Dad and Mama thank you for your faith, love, and support. Thank you for still taking care of me, and for so sacrificially caring for my family! Happy 40th Anniversary!

Daddy and Mama with their 40th Anniversary present (pictures of all the grandkids)!

Every Life Has a Story

I heard it said that if you treat everyone as though they're hurting, then you will be right most of the time. It's true - you never know what's going on in the lives and minds of the people you encounter. Maybe a lot of people who see my family in public think that Josiah is undisciplined and rude, and that makes me wonder about the wrong assumptions I've made about other people and their kids. I can certainly afford to be more generous with my kindness.

http://youtu.be/2v0RhvZ3lvY

Looking Back and Pressing Forward

-from Christy

Josiah was almost eighteen months old. Jeremy and I had been thinking for a while that something was a little off, but we soothed our concerns with the idea that perhaps our sweet boy was just quirky. My Mama and Daddy had been suspicious too, but they waited a little while to say anything. My Grandmother was close to passing, and Mama knew it just wasn't the time to tell me that she was wondering about the possibility of Autism.

I remember sitting in the living room with Jeremy one evening. I'm not sure which of us pulled the website up with a list of warning signs for Autism, but there it was. We read the list, and we sat in disbelief. It was like reading Josiah's biography. It was undeniable. This was our boy. I cried in bed that night as we lay looking at each other with Josiah between us. We fell asleep wondering if this could be and what were we going to do.

I awoke the next morning on a mission. Mama suggested a few people to call, and those people suggested a few people to call, and then I talked to our pediatrician on the phone. Dr. Mertz has become a dear friend over the years. He has walked through many difficult trials with us, and I knew he trusted my mother's intuition. Dr. Mertz asked me what things were concerning me, and he agreed to make a referral to the Children's Developmental Services Agency for testing. Dr. Mertz and a few other precious friends gave me very clear direction those first few days. Our initial meetings with the CDSA confirmed our fears, and, by the age of two, Josiah received his official diagnosis of Autism. 

And so began the flurry of therapies. Speech, Occupational, and Educational. I researched and I made appointments with a neurologist and a developmental pediatrician. Josiah underwent an MRI with contrast and genetic testing. It was at our neurologists office that I first heard the term ABA (Applied Behavior Analysis) therapy. The doctor assured us that the therapy is exceptionally costly, and he said that there were several other alternatives that would provide Josiah with every opportunity for development. He was right about ABA being expensive. Jeremy priced it, and, for one month of therapy, it would have taken our entire monthly income. It just wasn't a possibility. So I set out to learn about every therapy and early intervention we could get for Josiah. And we did them all. We drove to and sat through hours of therapy each week. I am thankful for those times because I now have the confidence that I did everything I could do. The therapies and therapists were good and so very supportive, but none of us had a clue just how severe Josiah's Autism truly was. 

Four and a half years later, our sweet boy has had almost no developmental gains. He now has the diagnosis of severe Autism and intellectual disability. We often hear from those working with him that he is one of the most severe children they have ever seen with this disorder. The Alamance Burlington School System (ABSS) just recently approved Josiah for homebound education, and they have brought in a well known ABA consultant to work with us. We are so thankful for this opportunity, but we are guardedly optimistic. We really like the consultant, and she understands and agrees with what we have been saying about Josiah for a long time. Our goals for him are the same, and she has given us many reasons for hope. Not hope like "maybe he will earn a PhD someday," but hope like "maybe he will potty train and maybe he will learn a few signs." Hope is a blessing! 

After our first few meetings, I was left thrilled about being hopeful, but heavyhearted that we were just getting access to ABA now. The therapy the consultant is using is actually a version of ABA called the Verbal Behavior Approach. The book we are reading makes so much sense. I have been left wondering why I have never been told about this book before. 

I know this is a lot of rambling to get to the point of this post, but here it is......To every Daddy and Mama out there wondering what to do, to every parent out there wishing they would have, and to every one asking what if, all you can do is your best today. God is in control. He gives us knowledge when He wants us to know. Our job is to do the best we can for our child with what God has given us. And so I am trying very hard to take my own advice right now. Stop what if-ing, Christy. Do all you can for this sweet boy today. Tomorrow will come, and God will give you the knowledge and strength for tomorrow. 

For all those Mama's looking for a way to start implementing ABA and Verbal Behavior techniques at home, here is the book you need. I am recommending it not because we have seen great gains yet, but because it is important to hope. Love and Blessings!