Closets of many a kind....

Umm.. does anyone know why my archive link is suddenly in Spanish? Did I do that?

So.. today I meant to blog about The Broom Closet and lost the wind in my sails. Now that they've picked up again, I figured I'd try to put my thoughts down, including ones about the many other closets I hide in.

You see, what I really wanted to do today was stay awake long enough to cook, take pictures of the process and share the recipe. Unfortunately, I just couldn't stay awake that long. My schedule is still all topsy turvy from a couple of bad nights. So now I wake up between 8 and 10 pm, and stay awake until noon.

Worst schedule ever. I feel like I miss the whole day. Case in point, I didn't get to cook. Punky did it. So of course my previously diagnosed Cleaver Syndrome kicked in. (Thank you Dr. Aine W.D.) I feel like it would have been stupid to blog about Turkeyroni. Who doesn't know how to make their own version? Psh.

Then I thought about blogging about my trials and tribulations in parenting and even about some of my wins.. but I got paranoid that I'd give away information that Satan would somehow pile up and take to court to take The Brat away from me with.  Mind you.. there isn't anything I could say that would logically lead to that.. I'm just paranoid.

These are some of the many closets I hide in. Some of them are the results of pride. Actually, most of them are in one way or another. They come about from a worry that people won't see me as I want them to see me. I'm a person like any other, I've got about a hundred sides to me.. but I want people to see the right ones first. It's about pride, and control, and a bunch of other stuff too.

So... here's me making attempt number one at coming out of some of these.

I cook stupid things like Turkeyroni. I'm aware you can get Beefaroni in a can, I just like my version better. Also the yield by price is way more awesome. It's not gourmet, or even pretty, but it's delicious. My mom used to make it for me. I taught Punky to make it, and now we both make it for our kid. The next time I make it, I vow to take pictures and show them off. NO MORE TURKEYRONI SHAME.

Ahem.

I am an awesome and righteous parent. Righteous as in I'm cool as hell, not in the AND JESUS SAID.. kind of way.

Bratexander the Great is autistic. Boy, was I not prepared for that. Is anyone ever prepared for that bomb? I mean, by the time he was officially diagnosed, we had kind of figured it out at home, but the figuring out part was the shocker. What do you do with an autistic child? How special are his special needs? How far from normal are we talking?

I got lucky. We got lucky. The Brat is on the low end of the spectrum. Which basically means that if anyone of you happened upon him in a park or on the street, his only tell would be his speaking difficulty. Of course, it doesn't help that he's got a retainer now and goddamnit has that thing set him back eons.

Anywho... like the average parent, I educated myself to the best of my ability. Most of it was trial and error. I learned that the television turns the boy child into a zombie. I think I've mentioned it before. His brain melts and pours out of his ears. So for the past three years he just hasn't had one. There's only one tv in the house and it comes out of the closet for Thanksgiving and Christmas/New Years. We watch the parade on Thanksgiving, and the lighting of the tree. That's about it.

I will admit that we are slowly relaxing on the rule lately, and perhaps allowing a little bit of x-box time. He's coming up on his first decade of life soon. His friends all have one, or even more than one. Not to mention a whole library of games. I became torn about making him an outcast. I figure that anything I forbid is just going to be something that he runs to and loses himself in as soon as I let the reigns go. I don't want him to be a eighteen year old basement dweller obsessed with  an x-box.

He can't play Monday thru Friday unless he saves some nuns from a burning building or something. I suppose that would earn him some x-box time. He has to earn play time. Thirty minutes of reading with no fussing earns him thirty minutes of game time. Miracle of miracles... he's not a little snot about it. He's not perfect, but not nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be.

So what does an autistic boy with no t.v. do when he's not in school? Time to come out of the internet anonymity closet.

He takes dorky web-cam pictures with his mamas. Hello world.

He cooks. One of his favorite pass times actually.

He takes over the world like a Bratexander should.

He goes to dance class. 

He hangs out with toy soldiers.

And visits the elves.

He goes ice skating at Lasker Rink.

Tries his hand at being a mermaid display at the Museum of Natural History.

Measures up against tigers at the zoo.

Plus you know there's piano class. Aikido. Visits to Lela's house. Can you tell? This is a kid that doesn't know the meaning of sitting at home and doing nothing. He's always somewhere doing something. That right there is my greatest accomplishment as a parent.

So.. who am I? 

I'm the rockstar mom in the Kim Kardashian shades.

Basking in the sunshine.

Trying to be a tiger.

And hopping out of the broom closet to try and find my witch-y path in nature. Horrible picture of me though.

The Broom Closet Miss Aine calls it. She's brilliant. I would have never thought to give it a name. I don't know that I've ever lingered in one for long. I think my relationship with my mother is the only one in which I'd still be in there. Only because I've never said to her, Mom, I'm a witch. Lord knows that we talk about witchcraft often enough. Miss Aine thinks my mom might even be one. 

Hilarious because my mom is a hardcore talk to God about it Christian. But I see it too. My mom raised me to know that the events of a harvest could be read in spilled wine. She's got what I teasingly call Peruvian Voodoo in her. She'll even get close to admitting it some days. When and where she grew up, you didn't rely on doctors as much as you did on Shamans.

She knows how to make all matters of herbs and vegetables and fruits work for her. I wish I was half as talented, but I know that I'm not because I'm still warm. Neither Hot nor Cold, just suspended somewhere in the grey middle.

But I dream things that'll happen. I have since I was tiny. Good lord did that suck. Knowing how you were going to be bullied the next day didn't exactly inspire to get up and go to school in the morning. Of course, it's never like it is in the movies. You can't just ninja dodge whatever is coming to you just because you know it's there. At least it never worked that way for me.

These days I wake up and mutter lines from shows and movies that make no sense out of context. Weeks/months/days later, whatever I sleepily muttered to Punky plays in a trailer or something. Utterly useless to me because I didn't want to dream anymore. So I begged the God that I believe in to please make it stop.

At the time, I had a near and dear witchy friend who told me not to do it. She said it was bad news to turn away from a gift. Said it wouldn't go away anyway. To this day I can't tell if she was just being harsh on me, or if she was just plain right. Maybe both. Eventually the dreams stopped meaning anything. 

And now my son sees things. AUGH. Damnit.Curse her and her witchy ways, but not really. That wasn't the sort of blowback I was expecting. I suppose that I should have been. So, I've been stuck lately. I don't have a community of witches that I belong to. I don't even have any more witchy friends as I used to, save for my bloggy godmother's Aine and Jeanne. Lord knows I bug them enough with all my endless questions. It sure feels like I'm in a broom closet.

Except for the part where I'm not. I live in the greatest city in the world. There isn't much you can do around here that'll shock anyone. Case in point, a neighbor came by months ago on a friendly visit and noticed that Punky had put some small storage containers she gave her to good use. So.. What was in them? Shepherd's purse. Without thinking twice about it, I just said it when she asked. Even went as far as to mention that it was for some spell work. She didn't blink twice, nodded along, and we carried on conversation until it was time for her to go. 

That's my tale on the broom closet. I don't really live in one, and some days I even whip out the witch card that I may or may not be entitled to just to scare away the crazies. 

So.. as I wrap it up.. I've got a question for you, my bloggy godmother. Though.. anyone with their own two cents can feel free to chime on in.

You define a witch as someone who does the magic. I think, I might be wrong, you've mentioned that he or she do it every day. It's just a part of life.  How strict is the every day thing? Is it like cooking? I try to cook at home ninety to ninety-five percent of the time. Sometimes though, there's pizza. Or Chinese. Or bootlegg KFC. Does it make me less of a cook? 

-Angelwick.