Psssssssssssst!

Don't tell anyone - this is just between you me.

We gave Grant cheese pizza last night. And he ate it.

You see, this is a big deal at our house. It's been well over a year that Grant has been on the eat-nothing-you-could-possibly-find-in-a-store-or-that-is-simple-to-make diet. Since the first few months, he's been positively fantastic about it, better than we could ever hope or expect him to be.

Previous to the diet, he didn't even eat pizza. He wasn't interested in it in the least. But, in the past few months he has wanted pizza when we had it at home. Even more recently, he's been saying "pizza" when we pass by pizza places. He even throws in a "yum yum" for good measure.

But last night we were all on the way home from Cassidy's basketball game when we passed by 2 pizza places and heard the familiar words from the back seat. We had just had that "it's too late to cook anything but what can we pick up that's somewhat healthy, not to mention, what will Grant eat" conversation. And then, in a knowing glance that only 16 years of marriage can make, we looked at each other as if to say "it's time". We're essentially done with standard chelation as it has stopped being effective at pulling out metals. He's still taking various supplements and we've stuck to the diet based on the allergy test results. After a year though, it's time for the double-blind study, the test and response.

And so, we stopped at the 3rd pizza place, our favorite - Sal's Pizza. Grant's response might as well have been that of Christmas morning, he jumped out of the car and ran to the door. Somehow he knew he wasn't going to be denied this time. He looked like one of those cartoons where the boy starts smelling something incredible and it lifts him off the ground and toward the prize. Once home, we were just as excited to see what he would do as he was to actually get to pull the pizza slice out of the box and put it on his plate.

He picked it up and bit in, savoring the bite like we savor the chocolate at La Fondue, eating with a slow passion like the first kiss after a long time apart. Grant continued to eat purposefully until it was all gone, including the crust. Our amazement in watching quickly broke, however, when Owen started to cry. "He can't eat that. It's going to hurt him!" Tears flowed as Grant's younger brother pleaded, "No, Grant, stop eating that!" We did our best to explain to Owen that it was OK and Grant was not going to be sick (we hoped). He took little solace and then turned his eyes up to us and said "I want Grant to talk like us." If ever a 5 year old showed love for his 8 year old brother this was it; we were witness to it and it was truly a memorable moment.

So now we wait and look for signs, changes, behaviors. We won't tell anyone, except you, so that we can get honest and unprovoked reports of positive or negative changes from his teachers and therapists. If there is nothing negative, we'll continue to introduce other items from the banned list, slowly and carefully. Out there, somewhere on the horizon, a boy finds popcorn, ice cream, and birthday cake and he smiles.

Lucky 7's

Thanks to March Day who has tagged me for the 7 random facts about myself meme - here are the rules:
1) Link to the person that tagged you, and post the rules on your blog.

2) Share 7 facts about yourself.

3) Tag 7 random people at the end of your post, and include links to their blogs.

4) Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Interestingly enough, my only previous tag was for 8 random facts about myself, so either I'm just a random kind of guy or else others know that I really don't like to talk about myself (wait, I'll use that for #1!).

#1 - Ok, not so random anymore, but I don't like to talk about myself. It's been obvious to me since I was a little kid as others would talk about themselves and I'd think, "hmm, I should be able to tell a story about myself like that..." but when it comes to a conversation, very rarely does a thought about myself come to mind. And if it does, I rarely feel as if it would be interesting to the other party.

#2 - My favorite season is Spring - it always has been and probably always will be. But, man, the allergies suck! I never had a hint of allergies until... one day... we were in the middle of a field full of 2-3 foot wildflowers and weeds surveying the land that would one day become my in-laws house. The sneezing hit me fast and hard and I've never been the same since. Every year from late March to mid July, I am one big mess.

#3 - I watch a little too much TV, although a lot less than I did growing up. My 3 favorite shows are Lost, Prison Break, and 24 although I also watch too much reality TV like Survivor and the Amazing Race.

Ok, those are totally boring, let's get really random.

#1. I've owned 2 VW bugs, the current one for the past 20 years. The first one I totalled in one of those accidents that you look back and wonder how you walked away from it. The current one is a 71 convertible that is in pretty bad shape at the moment.

#2. I've learned several instruments over the years - violin, piano, drums, handbells, and a bit of guitar. I can play what I read, but I can't play what I hear. It drives me crazy because I love to play but I just have no ability to translate what I hear into music.

#3. One thing I love to do even more than play music is to sing. However, there are very few things that I am worse at in life than singing. Once again, that drives me crazy! My singing ability barely rivals this guy.

#4. Speaking of singing, I love American Idol and I'm man enough to admit it. I love Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood but I've even got Jon Peter Lewis on my MP3 player.

#5. One of my favorite things is watching and playing football. My favorite team has always been the Pittsburgh Steelers. Have I ever been to Pittsburgh, you ask? No, I was born and raised here. But when I was about 8 and in my formative years for both infatuation and football loyalty, a family from Pittsburgh with a very cute 8 year old girl moved in down the block. The rest is history. Erin, do you realize what effect you've had on my life? :)

#6. I've been playing softball for about 20 years now and am probably best known for my "stretch" at 1st base. Other than my siren, this is probably the one thing that people come up to me and recognize me for.

#7. When it comes to 'night owl' vs 'morning person' - I am a 100% night owl. Even as I write this, it's 12:30AM and I would stay up for another 1-2 hours if... heck, I probably will. I am completely useless in the morning, even if I do fall asleep at a decent time. My perfect morning is sleeping in, then coming down to a big, hot breakfast, and reading the paper cover to cover.

I'll have to come back and add my tags...

Pain and silence

It's been a topsy-turvy weekend so far and we aren't even to Saturday yet! On Thanksgiving morning, we had just finished breakfast and going through all of the ads for Friday when Staci turned on the oven to start baking a few pies for Thanksgiving dinner at her parents' place. A few minutes later, the oven starts making a hideous sound - metal on metal. What? If there's one appliance I would not expect to break, it would be the oven. But there it was, complaining loudly as if to say - you don't need to eat any pie, you big lard! And so it quickly became clear that we needed to move into serious "get our butts out the door mode" so that Staci could do her cooking/baking at her mom's house. Thank goodness we weren't having the holiday at our house this year!

Over at the in-laws, Grant and I had a great time wandering over to see the farm animals across the road. He loves watching them, saying their names and making their sounds. Doing this always reminds me of one of the early autism questions - "does he make animals noises?" - he does now! We must have played there and then in the yard for a good hour until dinner. The food was incredible, as it always is - of course, I am all about the pies. I would trade the dinner in a heartbeat for the pies if I had to, but please don't make me!

And then Grant starting making this coughing/choking sound. It sounds like he had something in his throat, but he also started holding his stomach. Before long, we were running to the porcelain. I felt so bad for him! He was clearly in pain but he had no way to tell us how he felt or ask us to help. He put my hand on his lower belly and he had me kiss it, but he could only whimper and curl up. I held him and then ran him to the bathroom, back and forth for about an hour. After about 6 trips, whatever caused it left his body and he was back to his chipper self. What a strong boy he is! I'm so proud of him for getting through that tough time; I can't imagine what I would feel if I couldn't explain my pain.

On Friday, it was normal health for everybody and when we went for our regular trip to the park, Grant did great on his bike!! We've definitely moved past him requiring me to have a constant hold on the bike and he just seems much more at ease. He is steering all by himself and is riding in the proper spot on the path instead of right on the very right-edge. I might be fooling myself, but I think he actually enjoyed his bike ride on Friday.

I hope I've made it sound like we actually did something with our weekend, but in reality every spare minute I didn't describe here was spent playing Guitar Hero III. Everybody is hooked, except for Grant, although he has picked up the guitar once or twice. Staci is just about to finish the Easy career, I'm about midway through the Medium career and Cassidy is just about to finish Medium. If the boys were on vacation somewhere, it's safe to say that every waking minute would be spent playing that game - somebody stop us!

Generations

22 1/2 years ago, I ate a bowl of Frosted Flakes and stayed home. I wasn't feeling well, I said. The next day, it was another excuse and then I just stopped going to football practice. I was small and slow so I wouldn't have made the team anyway, I said. I was 99 lbs and the minimum was 100 lbs, I said. The next year, I said I'd never make it on the team because I hadn't played the year before. And so it went for 4 years; I never played although playing football was my biggest dream. I never even watched a game.

On Friday night, we, along with most of the town, watched the two local high schools go at it in the first round of the CCS playoffs. Our nephew was promoted from JV for the playoffs and we were so proud to see him out on the field. Prior to his freshman year, he had never played football, but he decided he wanted to play and 2 years later he's a star on defense. Earlier this year he had a severe injury completed unrelated to football; most of us were very doubtful that he would play this year, if ever again. But here he is, playing for the varsity after playing every game this year.

Today, we moved Staci's grandparents into an assisted-living home. This move is necessary and it's going to be a much better situation for them. Over the past several years, they've experienced the typical maladies of the typical 80+ year old but they haven't fought it. They haven't worked to improve their lives, they have existed. Although it was quite sad to see this change in their lives, it was even harder to wonder how their lives would be better off if they had exercised or socialized more.

I'm sure their "decision" was much like mine that day, just one bad excuse in an otherwise make-all-the-right-decisions kind of day. Fear of failure, fear of success, or just fear of pain - it doesn't matter which one, it just matters that we gave into it and it kept us from accomplishing our goals and dreams. As I realize these similariites and compare them to the joy of seeing our nephew push past this same fear and accomplish so much, I am going to some serious dreaming and goal-setting over the next few days and weeks and promise that nothing is going to keep myself or my family from living life to the fullest. If I do one day end up living in a room where assistance is required to help me live, it will only be because I have lived every second of every day to its fullest and my body is simply unable to keep up with my dreams.

Unacceptable

Regardless of where you stand on the vaccine controversy, this is unacceptable. Please do your part and bombard Prince Georges County, Maryland with complaints.