Rannygahoots

I wondered what I had done to my Sabbath. 

Sundays are set apart for my family. We go to church for Coffee and Conversation and Worship. We stay for Coffee Hour, catching up with friends and family over veggies and dip and a multitude of sweets. We go home, rest, read, play games, hang out, have dinner, do our nightly devotions and slip into bed contented after a day of relative rest.
But not this Sunday. Or next. Or the following Sunday. Or the one after that. Instead we will be rushing from church to home almost immediately following worship. I'll drop off four kids, pick up lunch, and be off once again with a thirteen year old and, hopefully, some coffee. I'll bring Haley to one of our favorite places to be - Epoch Arts - so she can help build, decorate, script, and costume a "Childhood Nightmares: Video Games Gone Wrong" room for Epoch's annual haunted house. No relaxed Sabbath for me. 
The first day was this past Sunday. I successfully ushered children out the …

From Gathering to Sending, they participate in worship ... through the prelude, the readings, the sermon, the Meal, the hymns, the prayers, all the way to the postlude. Well, they do in some churches, anyway. Others banish them from the sanctuary before things get too serious, too intense, or maybe just too bothersome to have them around, so it seems. 


I don't understand sending children somewhere else, such as "Children's Church" or the nursery at some point during worship. Granted, I slept through many a sermon as a child, taking everyone standing for the Gospel reading as my cue to curl up in the pew and snooze. But the times I stayed awake, I got something out of it. Like the sermon about lobsters and how when one molts, others gather around it and protect it while it's vulnerable, waiting for it to rebuild it's exoskeleton before it ventures out on its own. I don't remember what Bible reading was being referenced, but I do remember the message that we…

Why don't you just get a job? 

I've heard this several times over the past few weeks. I'm assuming the people who said it to me are concerned with our financial situation (trust me, I am, too!).
I have mentioned to my husband my need to add income to our family finances several times over the past few months, and have been set straight by both him and my body.
I have a full time job managing my health, working with my two autism spectrum children, my child with autoimmune issues, and my other two children and their quirks. This includes researching illnesses, medications and treatment options; scheduling and attending appointments; getting to various tests and medical procedures; keeping prescriptions current; maintaining a stock of supplements; and making sure each of us takes the proper medications and supplements each day. I work with my Aspie kids on behavioral and life skills, I get infusions every five weeks, and deal with side effects and the damage disease has already…

There are certain birthdays that get to me. Ten is one of them. TEN whole years. Double digits, even. And that Coren has reached this milestone blows my mind. What happened to my chubby cheeked four year old? He's supposed to still be four, right? Or six. Definitely not ten. TEN. 10.

Ten finds Coren taller, more sure of himself, and bursting with creativity. His Minecraft creations blow my mind. His kindness and compassion inspire me. His continued need for mama snuggles is just plain awesome. He connects with people easily and has a wealth of knowledge in that decade old brain to share. 


Sometimes is difficult for me to remember that he's no longer six or seven. No longer little, really. Perhaps it's the adorableness he continues to embody. Maybe it's his verylongwords like canIwatchamovieinZachary'sroomifZacharysaysit'sOK, 
or his playful nature. Whatever it is, he makes it really difficult for me to fully absorb the fact that he is indeed OLD.

My Moondragon...
Te…

It's World Suicide Prevention Day. I guarantee you all know someone who has attempted suicide. If you know me, you know someone who has attempted suicide. To anyone contemplating suicide: I love you, I need you. You matter. I want you to read this. All of it. 
To those who love someone who has committed suicide: I love you. I'm sorry. And I hope you know this...
(Originally posted 3/22/12)
In the past year, several of my friends have lost friends to suicide and as a result there's been a lot of discussion about suicide, the survivors of suicide, and mostly about the intensely emotional nature for all involved. This has led me to a lot of thinking, copious writing, much deleting, and to the realization that I cannot write about this without getting emotional, or while making any sort of coherent sense. So I figure I'll just type and see where it gets me...

Suicide is a one-way ticket to hell.

That's what many of us are told, what many of us believe. This is not what I be…

I had to have a parenty type conversation with a teenagery child. I had to use words like trust and respect and appropriate and think about it. I had to admit that some of this teenagery stuff leads to great amounts of freaking out in this mama's brain and that due to the Aspie status of the eldest teen, the younger teens are both teen test subjects in my parenting journey. They are male and female, and thus give their mama differing things to get all crazy-like about. I promised to try to sort through my scrambled thoughts before getting all parenty like.

It hit me like a ton of bricks how intensely responsible I feel for my nearly grown but not enough so children's behavior. I also realized that I didn't have a typical teenhood, so I have alarm bells screaming in my head about things that might not be as big of a deal as my mind is making them. 

And the guilt! Especially with an amazing friend's child involved. The why didn't I, I should have, didn't we talk en…

I adore Aaron's Arms: Not Church as Usual. It is a Facebook group where we come together to talk about faith formation and disabilities. 
We are individuals and families who either work with or are caregivers to special needs children and adults. Together we invite, network, and seek out congregations who offer a sense of belonging in the life of the church, and is open to developing worship services, curricula, and outreach projects designed to create a gentle space for special needs people so they may be guided in their faith formation.  ~Aaron's ArmsWe share articles and experiences, inspirations and frustrations. As a mom with two children on the autism spectrum and Tuesday Night Sunday School Planning Team member, it's refreshing to have a place to land when I have something, good or not so good, to share about my children and their unique needs or our unique cross-generation faith formation opportunity. 

Today, we were challenged by the page's fearless leader to po…