WARNING: THIS IS A LONG ONE...
I should start by just putting it out there that I love my children very much. We waited a long time for them and are very grateful for them in our lives... That being said, you may want to skip this post new mother's or mother's with only one child under the age of about 18 mo., there are days (sometimes whole ones) when they drive me off the edge... When I feel like they have figured out every possible thing they can do or button they can press, to drive me insane! Of course it's my job as "the adult" to not let them, but some days/weeks, that can be really hard.

The reason for my ranting is that this has been an exceptionally loooooong week! I tried to connect it to Halloween and lots of candy, but they haven't been involved in much and I've been very careful to limit the sugar intake for this precise reason. The bottom line is that I happen to have been "blessed" (I try really hard to look at it that way, I promise!) with two very "Spirited" boys. One, for those of you who we haven't been in contact with in ages, who was diagnosed with autism shortly after his second birthday and one who tends to be very defiant and mimics a lot of his younger brother's (they are 14 mos. apart) autistic "behaviors".

For example, when Will (our younger son) throws a tantrum, which is very common for even the highest functioning autistic (which he is) our older son (Ben) often follows suit and starts misbehaving because they are so close in age and tend to model behaviors back and forth. This is very common with siblings, of autistic children, especially when they are so close in age. Fortunately, this is the same with good behavior and skills and so we feel very blessed with this and don't feel that it was an accident that Will came so quickly after Ben.
What I mean is that while it makes for some craziness at home, the fact that they are so close in age has helped Will to be as high functioning as he is because he has someone to model "typical/normal" behavior from, as well as someone to make friends for him which is exactly what Ben does.
I try really hard to keep the blessings present in my mind, at least to think about them at the end of each and every day. Sometimes the only time I can do that is once they're sound asleep in bed and I know it's "my time". My time to put the couch back together after the days fort has crumbled to the ground, or to clean the spicy-cheatos stain out of the carpet for the millionth time. Time to brush my teeth because I realized when I was talking to Will's Speech Therapist that I had completely spaced that one out that morning.

You get the picture. It's just quiet time. Maybe if there's enough of it, I'll be able to slip in a little "me" time and take off the nasty nail polish that's been peeling off the 2 month old pedicure I gave myself the last time I squeezed myself in. Speaking of... my husband's at Mickie D's with the boys so I'm going to go take a long over due bath, and I don't mean the soaking kind. Sick, I know!

A rare "at one" moment with nature...

I have to say that these pics from the "zoo", here in the desert, are some of my favorites in a long time. Some of the reason for that, I guess, is that I don't take pictures very often but they're not usually this captivatable. (new word, I realize) They being the boys, of course, who were so cute and into trying to catch and look at the beautiful butterflies that were everywhere that day. Surprisingly enough they weren't even trying to kill them.

My Little Super Heroes!

My little guys have always loved to play dress-up, whether it's with costumes , hats or funny shoes/slippers. I'll have to dig up some pictures of some rain boots that they wore around everywhere even in the middle of the summer in their diapers. Speaking of summer... here they are running around in full costume regalia in mid September, in the desert. Not a great combo!

Here's my crazy little "Power Ranger" Will. I say crazy because this was over a month ago and it was at least a hundred degrees at the park that day, but my little super heroes were determined to save the day!

Ben practicing his "Cartoon Panda" moves. He got to go see "Kung-Fu Panda" on a daddy and Ben outing and ever since, he's been running around the house telling everyone that he knows "ka-ra-tay" and he's certainly not afraid to practice it on his little brother, to my dismay of course.

Just another one of my cute "Power Ranger" Will!

Some family pics...

I guess I'll just put a few older pics of the family up until we get some new ones taken so that you can get a glimpse of us together...

My little cuties...

I wanted to include a few pics of them when they were just little peanuts because it blows me away to see how quickly they 've gotten so big! It reminds me that I need to slow down and just enjoy each day more. Time really is flying by...