Snow day=happy kid!

:) I was just about to get up & to the business of hauling Brendan out of bed this morning when the phone rang... I knew exactly what it meant, too. Charlie listens to the radio on his brief ride to work in the morning & so he gets the first news about school closings. He greeted me with, "You'll have one happy boy today!" :) I wished him a good day & tiptoed into Brendan's room to turn off the alarm, on the odd chance he was still asleep, & as I left a voice came from out of the covers- "Today's a free day."
Huh? "How'd you know that?"
"You told me last night."
"Honey, dad just called with the news, so there's no way I could have told you last night..." Honestly, I think the kid must be psychic.

The beauty of it all is that it's a snow day without snow :) I looked at the weather map online & Upstate NY is purple, something you rarely see. It's about 4 degrees above zero right now, but the wind chill is suppsed to be -20 or less today, hence the school closings. I don't think Brendan has had a snow day in 2 or 3 years (even some of the teachers at his school have been hoping for one this year, just to shake things up :). It's actually a gorgeous day, although no way is he going outside... He & Charlie were out for about an hour on Saturday & that was all they could handle in 15-degree weather.

Saturday just whizzed by- Charlie was out of the office, so he & Brendan were able to play both outside & inside Saturday morning. I was very excited because the radio show that I was interviewed for finally aired, after having been bumped from the schedule last Saturday. I was kind of nervous, not having heard the finished show, but I just knew if would be well done. I went to tape the show for Charlie to listen to later, on our 11-year-old boom box (purchased specifically to take to the hospital so I could have music in the birthing centre while having Brendan). It had worked just fine when I taped the show that was aired in place of mine... but when I pushed "record" this time, tape spewed out of the cassette. I fumbled with the spindle that controls uptake & it came sproinging out in my hand. Arrgh!!! Thirty seconds or so before the show began & sprinted downstairs to our even-more-ancient tape deck/receiver, but couldn't figure out how to switch bands from fm to am... I gave it up & got back upstairs to find I'd just missed the intro, & settled-in to listen. It was wonderful. I was alternately laughing & crying as I heard my own words come out of the boom box. My friend, Santosha, who had interviewed me & then edited the show (paring 1 1/2 hours of conversation down to 20 minutes!) did a great job of bringing out the points I'd really wanted to make- that it's possible to be a happy autism family. The show will be up as a poscast- someday. The person responsible for posting the podcasts hasn't been keeping up with it (I am trying to decide whether or not I should send some friendly harrassment his way :), so I will post the link as soon as it happens. After listening to the show I emailed Santosha to tell her how much I loved it & that I feel as though my voice has just gotten bigger :) When I told her about the taping disaster (yesterday, at church, after giving her a big hug) she promised to get a cd of the show for Charlie to hear.

The rest of Saturday sped by... Brendan & I took my laptop up to the third floor sewing/studio space & worked more on the story we're writing for dad's birthday. We came down an hour or so later in fits of giggles, which I'm sure made Charlie look forward to it even more- but he has to wait till tomorrow! (his birthday :) We had arranged for our goddaughter to sit for Brendan while we had dinner at a friend's house, but she called in sick, so I quickly called grammie &, behold!, she was free to come over. She & Brendan have a great time together, so it was pretty much a win-win situation. We had a lovely time over dinner & while we were there it snowed 3 inches!! We left just after it stopped & the world was beautiful...

We had planned to stay for lunch at church yesterday, particularly since Brendan had had a good time in Sunday School (they learned about Thich Nhat Hanh- he has been very interested in learning about peacemakers lately, like Gandhi & MLK, Jr.) but the crowd in the lounge really spooked him, so he proposed that we go to an asian restaurant instead, insisting that we wouldn't have to wait as long for our food there as we would in the lunch line at church... :) We fell for it anyway & piled out into the cold for a lovely lunch together. Back home, I sacked-out on the sofa for about an hour (choir practise really takes it out of me these days...) & then we got together for another family activity. Brendan & I had promised Cherie, his consultant teacher, that we would record some more sound effects for the class play, since she was going absolutely nuts trying to find them on cds & the internet. So, we had to record a key turning in a lock, the wind blowing, a body being dragged across the floor (!), extended giant chicken squawking, & a fog horn. We fired-up Quick Voice on my laptop again & got to work. The lock was a cinch (we have an old-fashioned front door) & Charlie was voted best wind-reproducer. Then we loaded a cardboard box with stuff & dragged it over the carpet, after discussing whether an extended drag or a series of short drags sounded better (series of short won). Brendan provided the giant chicken squawks (of course) & did a pretty good fog horn as well. I burned them all on cd & so, hopefully, Cherie will have all she needs... It was an awful lot of fun to work on together & think we have a collective future as Foley artists :)

Brendan got ticcier & ticcier as the evening wore on, & I was pretty tired, too, but Charlie was up to the task of distracting him & all potential meltdowns were avoided (hooray!). Brendan had finished on his own the Droon book I'd been reading to him at bedtime (the whole point of getting the book was for him to read it, so I was pleased) so after dinner I went on a hunt for the next book to read. I really wanted something not terribly exciting, since the exciting ones don't put him to sleep. Charlie suggested Rachel Carson's "The Sea Around Us", so we started it last night. It is perfect- just interesting enough that he doesn't protest, but not so exciting that it keeps him up. He was asleep within 10 minutes.

So- today, we have plenty to do on this "snow day". A card to make for dad, a story to work on, birthday card for Grammie (this weekend), interspersed with AQ... I'm looking forward to a fun day :)