December 15, 2006

I can't believe how long it's been since I posted on here....the time just seems to get away from me and now I find that a scary thing. My life is flying by. Just today I spent an hour (an HOUR) on the phone (relay) with the Social Security Administration. They called me yesterday and left a message for me to call them. I called today and spent an entire WASTED hour giving them social security numbers, dates and places of birth, addresses, maiden names, mother's maiden names...only to have the SSA representative tell me that I needed to make an APPOINTMENT to come in to the local office because she "wasn't sure why [the SSA] had called me" yesterday! When I spoke with a supervisor (over the delightful and competent first SSA representative's objections), even the supervisor had no idea why I had been called! And it took me an HOUR to find out NOTHING! Now, you can bet that if I HADN'T called them back, they would have had found a reason to lower my (or Christopher's) benefits! That's our tax dollars at work, folks!
My irritation by the wasted time on the phone was exacerbated by the fact that Amy, Christopher and Sharyll were downstairs waiting for me to finish so we could go to the Children's Museum. We finally managed to get on the road, did a quick drive-thru at the Golden Arches and arrived at the museum just in time to see busloads of school children LEAVING! That was the best part of the delay!!! (In case you've never had the pleasure of being in a crowded place with an autistic child and 1500 screaming 2nd graders, let me just sum it up this way: BAD THING). I'm sure we looked kind of funny with Christopher in his "stroller" and me in a wheelchair. While I am still able to walk, I get so tired when I walk long distances, so the wheelchair came in handy. The only problem is that at certain points in the museum Christopher (understandably) wanted to get out of his "stroller" and play...no problem, except now Amy was chasing Christopher and Sharyll was either helping Amy and/or having to push Christopher's empty stroller...and I'm trying to wheel myself around to where I can see (good luck keeping up with an autistic kid with an attention span of -- oh -- about 0.01 second...especially in a wheelchair!). Tonight my arms are so tired and cramping from the little time that I was wheeling myself around! But it was worth it all because Christopher had a BLAST! The Children's Museum is an amazing place and we are blessed to have been given a membership by my sister last Christmas. The memories we've made there have been priceless!
Phillip is here again this weekend. Tomorrow he is going to do some work around the house to earn money to go Christmas shopping. He is so generous and giving....and SO very concerned that he buy gifts for the people he loves. I am so proud of him. School is going well in Anderson and he seems so happy. I hope to get some pictures taken with him over Christmas break! Love, Claudia