Gratitude and Thanksgiving…With Tinsel On It!

By Shannon Penrod

I got concerned this year that I had missed Thanksgiving.  I walked into stores expecting to see pumpkins and pilgrims that would signal to my Pavlovian brain that it was time to buy turkey…and oh yes, to remember to be thankful.  Instead I walked into stores and was bombarded by full on Christmas.  I almost had a panic attack when I ran into Wal-Mart for panty hose the other day and was assaulted by a sign that said, “Only 44 more day ’til Christmas!”  Only 44 more days!  Holy…oh, wait a minute…44 days is  long time.  What happened to Thanksgiving? Judging by Wal-Mart’s shelves it’s non-existent and Wal-Mart is not the only one to jump the gun a bit.  Did all of the world’s retailers sit down and have a secret meeting where they decided to just skim over Thanksgiving this year and just plow right through to Christmas?  Is the economy so bad they just assumed that none of us had anything to be grateful for?  I was mulling this over, and was actually afraid that I wouldn’t remember to be grateful without all the commercial prompting, when I had Grinchesque moment.     Stores don’t remind us to be grateful, life does.

I remember years ago hearing Reverend Beckwith speak.  He was talking about all the little things that manage to bring us down on any given day.  He asked us to stop and consider that whatever was gripping us might be the very thing we should be grateful for.  We might be frustrated that we have a sink full of dirty dishes to clean, but somewhere in the world there is a homeless person who is dreaming of being able to have dishes in a sink that need to be cleaned.  Talk about a reality check!  I remember going home and saying really nice things to my noisy and on the verge of breaking dishwasher, not to mention looking at all of the little blessings that I had taken for granted.

It’s so easy to get caught up in the minutia of our lives and to view it as unsubstantial.  Yet, when the mundane acts of life are threatened or taken away they are exactly the things we wish for.  We move through our days unaware of how lovely it is to be able to grocery shop until something prevents us from doing it.  It could be as simple and as temporary as a cold or something as serious as long-term illness or the death of a loved one.  Suddenly those simple tasks, the things done mindlessly on a Tuesday afternoon, take on new meaning.  We long for them.  What we wouldn’t give for just one day of blissful normalcy.

As I was worrying about the commercial wipe-out of Thanksgiving and what it would mean to my spiritual developement this week, I noticed that the posts of a high school friend had changed on Facebook.  Her husband and family were posting for her.  Stage four cancer had made it impossible for her to chat with us anymore.  Yes, life reminds us to be grateful.  When I might have complained about the long lines at the grocery store I remember what a privilege it was to be standing in line.  When the thought crossed my mind that gas prices are high I remembered how lovely it is to be able to pick my child up from school and talk to him about falling leaves.  I was reminded that everyday is a gift.

My high school friend departed this earthly world yesterday.  I know that she is at peace now and in a better place, but I can’t help wondering what she would have traded to have one more Tuesday filled with laundry and dishes and shopping as well as the laughter and love that tag along with them.  Yeah, I was definitely reminded to get my grateful on.

As a kid we would always decorate our Christmas tree and then stand back and admire it before we piled tinsel on it.  Occasionally someone would suggest that maybe we shouldn’t put tinsel on it at all.  That kind of thinking never won out because invariably someone would pipe up and say, “Every thing looks better with tinsel on it!”   As a child I agreed.  I’m not so sure anymore.  I suspect there are some things in life that no matter how much tinsel you put on it, there’s no improving it.  What I do know is that no matter how much commercial tinsel gets heaped on Thanksgiving I can and should remember to count my blessings.

The Gift of Peter Pan

By Shannon Penrod

In the song Return to Pooh Corner there is a line that says…It’s hard to explain how a few precious things, seem to follow throughout all our lives… Peter Pan is one of those precious things in my family.

I have always loved Peter Pan so I was thrilled when a little over a decade ago I was invited to attend a special performance of the acclaimed Broadway version starring Cathy Rigby.  The performance was special because it was being filmed for the Arts & Entertainment network.  I went to the Theater expecting a magical evening and I wasn’t disappointed.  It took my breath away.  It was a bitter-sweet evening, as I watched in wonder and also watched all of the children in the audience.  I was in my late 30′s with a biological clock that ticked louder than Hook’s dreaded crocodile.  The evening was perfect…except that I longed to have a child to share it with.

As luck and prayer would have it, I did end up having a child a couple of years later and I was thrilled that the performance of Peter Pan that I had attended was available on DVD.  My child LOVED the DVD from the first time he watched it.  He danced around the room and would crow like a rooster, following Cathy Rigby’s every move.  It was a special joy to me that my little boy loved that particular version of Peter Pan.  It made my world feel right.

Then my son changed.  It wasn’t overnight, but a slow slide into nothingness.  My child stopped dancing, and singing and then talking.  He still loved that Peter Pan DVD, but Autism had come to live at our house and now his enjoyment was displayed in sitting quietly when nothing else would soothe him.  Whenever he was sick, and for a while that was often, the only thing that made him feel better was that Peter Pan DVD – the Disney version couldn’t do it, but Cathy Rigby could. 

As my son worked to regain language, one of the first things he verbally requested was “Peter Pan!”  My son worked tirelessly for years to overcome the more disabling aspects of Autism.  Through those years we moved a couple of times and at some point the Peter Pan DVD got packed away and was eventually forgotten.  My son progressed miraculously and all was right with our world.

Then last month we were invited to a special performance of Peter Pan, starring Cathy Rigby!  I couldn’t believe our luck!  I couldn’t contain my excitement.  I talked to my son on the way to the theatre and asked him if he remembered anything about the version of Peter Pan that he had loved as a child.  He didn’t really.  I was dismayed, but hopeful.  I knew he was going to love the show, whether he could remember it or not.

We sat in the Theater as the overture began and I held my breath, it was a full circle moment that had taken more than a decade, but I was finally going to be able to share the magic of such a wonderful show with my own child! There are no words to describe how truly fabulous the evening was.  My face hurt from smiling so much.  My child was riveted, transported, transfixed, enchanted, swept away and moved.  I was in heaven.  I drank in the show, and my child loving the show, like a starved woman at a banquet.  I could have stayed in that Theater in that moment forever.  I would have gleefully moved in if they had let me!  I should also add that my husband who had never seen the live show, but at one point had the entire DVD memorized, sat on the edge of his seat with a goofy grin on his face the entire show.  He loved it as much as any of the children which was just the icing on the cake.

After the show, when I would have told you it could not have gotten any better, we were invited to go backstage.  My little boy shook with excitement when Cathy Rigby came up to him and quietly filled his hands with fairy dust.  She talked to him and I worried that he was going to pass out.  Ahhh, the eye contact was something to behold!  It was the perfect end to a perfect evening and the lovely bookend to a relationship with a truly magical show. But, it wasn’t the end at all…

The next morning my son woke me up singing.  Please understand that before Autism my son sang all the time.  After Autism my son hummed all the time and eventually sang on the rare occasion, softly, so no one could here.  Singing, it seemed, and the enjoyment of it, was just part of the collateral damage of Autism.  Over time it was just something we had accepted. 

I don’t know what the magic surrounding this particular version of Peter Pan is, I just know that there is magic in this show for me and for my child.  It is as though the show reached through time and touched something in him from years ago, something I thought had been lost in translation.  Ever since we saw the show, my child has been singing out loud whenever he has had the opportunity.  This morning he woke my husband and I up singing, ” Zip-a-Dee-Do-Da!”  Every night he has asked me to sing songs from The Wizard of Oz with him.  He has been making songs up, improvising lyrics, cracking us up and leaving us speechless.  I thought we had lost this forever.  But Peter Pan brought it back.  It was something I hadn’t even thought to hope for.

So…what can I tell you?  Our kids are only little for such a short time.  Getting to see their faces lit with wonder is such a precious gift.  Getting to share a moment of sheer delight with them is something to be cherished, a memory that will never fade or tarnish.  This is what seeing Peter Pan, starring Cathy Rigby can do.  This and possibly much, much more.  I’m telling you it’s magical!  This amazing show is on its way back to New York for the holiday season.  If you are looking for something spectacular to share with a child in your life, you can not afford to miss this show.

To Cathy Rigby, to the cast and crew of Peter Pan, and to Glenn Casale, the brilliant director of both this production and the one over a decade ago – Thank you!  Thank you for the magic!  Your work and your talent has made profound difference in the life of one special little boy.  Please consider your karma bank full and know that you are nightly included on one mother’s gratitude list.

Let the Holiday Treadmill Begin!

By Shannon Penrod

Yesterday I found myself saying to someone, “I’m so far behind!  It’s mid- September and I don’t even have Jem’s Halloween costume!  It may seem like it’s far away, but Halloween is just around the corner and then seven seconds later it’s Thanksgiving and then it’s just a slow slide into Christmas and New Years!”  While I was ranting about the impending holiday treadmill my blood pressure climbed until I could see my pulse in my left eye.  How did I turn into someone who stresses about holidays months in advance?  I never used to be this way!  I loved the holidays!  Of course that was when I was single and childless.

Back in the old days I could shop on my own terms and didn’t have to have a babysitter or a shopping cart full of distractor toys to occupy a small child while I attempted to find just the right gift.  I remember showing up to holiday parties on time, with clean clothes on and my face fully made-up.  I was rested and full of joie de vivre!  I remember clearly the first holiday season after I became a mother.  I arrived at one party 40 minutes late with vomit in my hair and leaking breasts.  I ate a carrot stick and then fell asleep on a love seat while people reveled around me.  It wasn’t my finest moment.  That was the same holiday season that featured no batteries on Christmas morning, so none of the toys lit up or played music and there was no picture of my child on Santa’s lap that year.  I arrived at the mall too late on Christmas Eve and the line was already closed.  I felt like a total failure.

That’s when I stepped firmly onto the holiday treadmill.  This is the gerbil wheel that tells a mom if she hasn’t started her Christmas shopping by mid September, she’s never going to make it.  It is the anthem that screams “If you don’t get the Durkee Fried Onions now, they won’t have them at Thanksgiving! ”

I remember my mother baking and freezing Christmas cookies in September and October when I was a kid.  Every weekend she would make two kinds, so by the time December rolled around she could throw together a platter of homemade cookies that would make Martha Stewart cry with envy.  All those years that my mother baked the fall away, and I thought she was crazy!  Now I know the truth, she was on the treadmill!

Last year I attempted to get off the treadmill.  We scaled back.  I only opened two boxes of decorations and we didn’t even put all of those up.  I shopped less, gave fewer gifts.  I did almost no baking and we didn’t even get pictures taken.  We didn’t have a party and we scaled back on attending parties.  All in all… it sucked.  There wasn’t any hustle and bustle but there wasn’t much awe and wonder either. 

Now that I am a Mom and a wife I know that part of the joy of having pulled off a holiday extravaganza is the joy of seeing those surprised faces!  Sure, they never fully understand how much work went into getting 22 hot dishes on the table at the same time, or decorating a full house and buying presents for 50 people on a budget of $100!  But they still look happy and cared for and at the end of the day that’s what it’s all about.  So, I’m on the treadmill this year again.  I already have my teacher gifts and my Toys 4 Tots donations, at this rate, if I can keep it up, I may get to sleep in December.  To all those Moms who make it happen every holiday season ROCK ON!

My Child Bought What With My Smart Phone????

By Shannon Penrod

My husband and I broke down and bought smart phones recently.  I know, I know, we were horribly behind in the technology trend to be able to communicate with the entire world at all times and in all locales.  At first the phone made me feel stupid, which made me question why they called them smart phones!  Then I started to get the hang of it and wondered why we held out so long…then last week a couple of things happened, which reminded me why I hesitated. 

My husband  let our son play with his phone.  This was not something new.  Our son loves technology – I had to have him show me how to take a picture with my phone!  Both my husband and I have allowed our son to play games on our phones.  We have a very important rule though, he isn’t allowed to download games.  We have to approve the games and approve the cost, then we download them for him.  My son completely understands this and has always been compliant, so I was shocked when my husband told me that our son had downloaded a game that cost $5. 

We grilled our son and he maintained that he had not downloaded any games.  We patiently explained to him that he did and if he couldn’t be honest about it he wouldn’t get to play with the phones anymore.  He still maintained his innocence even when my husband woke me up that night clutching his chest and telling me that he had actually bought something for $100!!  I told my husband to go to bed and we would look at it in the morning and try to figure out what was going on.

Charges continued to roll in during the night.  By morning there were over $350 in charges racked up and we didn’t know if there were more coming!  Now I was having chest pains. It’s funny how we all have our breaking point!  At $5, I wasn’t happy but I thought, “Oh, well!  We all make mistakes!”  At $100, I was taking the device away and taking the money out of his birthday account!  At $350 I was ready to fight it!  How on earth can an 8-year-old rack up $350 in charges without a password?

I started doing my research.  My son had not downloaded a game at all.  He made an in-game-purchase.  Several of them!  He was playing a FREE game, that we downloaded for him and within the game he was asked if he would like more stuff?  Would he like a zoo?  Within the game there was a monetary system and I guess like Farmville there were two monetary systems, one that was real money and one that was pretend money.  Unlike Farmville, if you went to purchase something with “real money”, which was named something cute, like, “city money”, you only had to click okay and real money would be deducted from your credit card!  There was no warning, no password, no security check, just a lovely little debit of real cold cash!  My son was asked if he wanted a zoo, he did, so he said okay – $100 – Bing!  Gone!

We asked for our money back and got it – along with a little lecture about how children under the age of 14 should not be playing the game.  Apparently there is a way to set up devices and games to disable the in-purchase ability of all users.  I encourage you to google how to do this for your smart device now.  I told a friend what happened to us and 3 days later her son rang up $500 on her husband’s iPad playing a “free” Smurf game.  He bought a virtual wagon for $100.  As his mother said, this is clearly a scam.  You can go to Wal-Mart and buy a real wagon for less than $100!

Smart phone??  Jury is still out on that.  You have to be smart to use it safely, that’s for sure.

 

Love Letter To My Husband on Our 9th Anniversary

By Shannon Penrod

Dear Jim,

Nine years ago today we stood in front of friends and family and took vows that have more meaning to me now than they every could have meant then.  I remember part of our vow was an Irish prayer that said, “You are the last person I want to see before I sleep and the first person I want to see upon waking.”  Honey, it was true then, but it’s so much truer now.  When you asked me to marry you I said, “Yes!” without hesitation, because I knew I loved you and I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you.  I’d already tried to live without you and I didn’t like that.  What I didn’t know was how truly marvelous you are.  I didn’t know it because time had yet to reveal it.

How could I have known that you were going to be such an amazing father?  I believed it, but the reality is so much better. I couldn’t have known that you were going to love our little boy with a fierceness that takes my breath away.  I couldn’t dream that you were going to be the type of Dad who calls me up from work and says, very seriously, “Honey, I’ve been thinking about it a lot and… we just aren’t videotaping enough.  I just know that some day we’re going to look back and wish we had a camera running 24/7.”  It just takes my breath away how wonderful you are.

The things you do to make that little boy laugh!  Oh my!  Yeah, other people may have Emmys and Oscars for their comedic performances but baby they’ve got nothing on you.  The best laughs I have ever had have been of your crafting.  I can not count the number of times you have made me laugh until I have fallen off the couch, been doubled over clutching my stomach and begging for air.  You funny.  It’s kind of my little secret and I LOVE to watch people who don’t know you realize it.  For years my friends and family thought that because I’m funny you must be the straight man to my humor.  Of course nothing could be further from the truth. I love your sense of humor and I treasure all of laughs we share.  Thank God we have laughed, because we have been through some @#!$!

When I think of what we have been through in the last five years I don’t know whether to laugh, cry or wet my pants.  I’d rather just hold on to you and tell you over and over, “Thank you!”  Thank you for sticking by me, through Autism, through a nervous breakdown, a reality show, three moves, being sued by the school district twice, 2 summers in Southern California with NO AIR CONDITIONING, total financial devastation, IRS hell, a dead landlord with a crazy ex-wife and ever so much more.  Thank you, because looking back on it, it all seems like a really funny adventure now.  That’s because we were in it together.  There was never ever a moment when I thought for even a second you weren’t going to stick it out with me.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.  I can go anywhere and do anything because I know at the end of the night I get to go home with you.  That’s my ace in the hole, right there.

I think back to all of the promises we made nine years ago.  We’ve been able to keep almost all of them.  Yes, a few of our dreams got differed because of a little thing called Autism.  We haven’t been able to do all of the “couple” things we would have loved to.  Even this morning, you’re off to take Jem to Harry Potter Camp, while I’m staying home to tackle the garage in preparation for yet another move next week.  It’s not the big romantic anniversary we would have planned nine years ago.  It may not be what others would choose, but I don’t care.  I want you to know that I still choose you, I still choose us.  I love our life, our love our little family and I love being on this adventure with you.  I love you and I love the way you love me.  I never, ever thought I would have that.  Thank you for making our story a love story.

Happy Anniversary Love!

The Alpha and the Omega

by Shannon Penrod

I’m not terribly good and beginnings and endings.  I like middles.  Beginnings are bumpy and fraught with unexpected muck.  Endings are messy and emotional.  Today is an ending and I am definitely feeling messy and emotional.  While I am writing this my son is in the next room having his last session with one of his ABA therapists.  5 1/2 years ago I remember hearing the word Autism in connection with my son and feeling like I was stepping off a cliff into a hole that had no bottom.  It was a messy beginning to say the least. But, that was then and this is now.  I’m sitting on the sofa crying because I can’t believe we actually did it. Somehow we managed to rearrange our lives to accommodate an army of trained therapists parading  through our home, coaxing our child out inch by inch, hour by hour, year by year until we  finally arrived here.  Here is unbelievably good.

I remember the first time I ever drove to California. I couldn’t help but wonder at the tenacity of the first settlers who reached the Rocky Mountains and decided to scale them to get to the other side.  For the first time I understood why places like Denver became cities.  A whole lot of people looked at those mountains and decided it just wasn’t worth it.  I always thought I would have been one of those people.  Now, on the other side of the mountain I can’t help but look back and think, “Holy CRAP!!! Did we really just scale that?”  We did.  We really did.

For the last few weeks I’ve been watching this really amazing docu-series on the web, called “The A-Word”.  It follows a family through their early days of diagnosis and getting ABA therapy.  It’s amazing.  I can’t stop talking about it.  For me it’s like getting to relieve those early days without all the fear, without all the uncertainty.  I’m watching the family adjust to the fact that their entire life has been picked up and shaken like a box of Legos, and I find myself crying – because I know how lucky they are.  I don’t know if they know it yet, but I do.  But they are at the beginning and we are at the end.  The Alpha and the Omega of ABA therapy for Autism. Everyone should be so lucky.

I don’t know what the future holds, but I know that this journey has been life defining for me and my family.  Can’t isn’t in our vocabulary anymore.  Hope is something that has legs.  Fear is just false evidence appearing real.  Courage is a small child who doesn’t give up.  Love is never giving up.  Hard is meaningless and everything is possible.

So, what do you do to mark such a moment occasion?  We already had the party, we already went to Disneyland so today we’re just going to be normal and go see the premiere of CARS 2.  That’s what 8-year-old boys want to do on a Friday night; and starting today that’s who my son is, an 8-year-old boy, just like everyone else.  It is our new Alpha.

The Food Thing

By Shannon Penrod

Just when I think I have the food thing figured out I hear God laughing again.  He laughs at me a lot.  I eat really healthy, my child eats really healthy, I can’t speak for my husband but let’s just say he eats healthier now than he ever has and leave it at that.  My child willing eats vegetables, even requests them, so I must be doing something right.  Still….I read and wonder.  I am religious about having my son on a GFCF diet (Gluten Free/casein Free for those of you outside the Autism community), he is also free of sugar and artificial sweeteners.  This is not a some time thing, it’s an all the time thing.  I’m the crazy woman at the birthday party with the weird-looking cupcake and the sliced beets on my kid’s pizza.  So you would think that I am crazy organic too and great friends with a group of sustainable farmers.  Yeah…not so much.

I don’t know if the rest of you have noticed, but organic stuff is expensive.  I’m talking EXPENSIVE!  I used to care more about organic before the whole Autism thing came to live at my house.  But Autism is even more expensive than organic vegetables so it won the fist fight.  Now I’m thinking that may have been a bad choice.  A new study has come out that suggests that ADHD may be linked to pesticides.  Apparently pesticides are designed to disrupt something in the bug’s neurotransmitter system.  I didn’t know that, I thought it just killed them.  That probably sounds stupid, but I never thought about it before.  I just figured it choked the bugs somehow that wasn’t great but wasn’t all that harmful to humans.  You’re talking to the woman who used to run into the fog made by the DDT truck when she was a child.  Those pesticides probably killed the neurotransmitters in my brain that allow for higher thinking about pesticides.  I digress.

If this pesticide disrupts the bugs neurotransmitters and we eat vegetables that are sprayed with it doesn’t it stand to reason that we would see a BUNCH of people having neurotransmitter issues?  Oh, yeah, we have. Hmmmm.  How about that skyrocketing rate of Autism, ADD, ADHD,  Depression, BiPolar disorders and the list goes on.  So I am arranging to have an organic farm co-op bring us a box of food every week.  I don’t see how I can’t.  It’s not even that expensive, maybe $10 more a week than I would have spent, but I would have spent that in gas driving to 3 different stores.  It’s an adventure.  I’ll let you know how it goes!

Byron Katie and God’s Business

by Shannon Penrod

I am an admitted control freak.  The worst part of being a control freak for me is my unshakeable belief that I can solve all of your problems if you would just let me.  I have no desire to work on my problems.  Why would I?  My problems are old, boring and insurmountable, not to mention complicated and convoluted.  On the other hand, your problems are crystal clear – to me, and infinitely solvable if you would just do what I say.  Of course it’s exhausting knowing how to fix your life and watching you resist my plan for you.  Not to mention that quite honestly there are a few things that I need to take care of in my own life that I can’t seem to get to because I’m so entrenched in what you should be doing.  There’s the rub.  You know what they say, when the student is ready, the teacher appears….I must be ready, because my teacher has appeared.

I am reading Bryon Katie’s book, Loving What Is, and I am seeing myself in a way that I haven’t ever before.  Even in the first few pages of the book she has challenged me to consider that there are only 3 types of business – My business, everybody else’s business, and God’s business.  Katie simply asks her reader to examine when ever they are sad, lonely, angry, uncomfortable, cranky or just our of sorts, whose business they are in when feeling that way.  Her supposition is that when you are out of whack it is because you are in business that is not your own.  Ugghhh.  This is a little too close to home.  I live in other people’s business!  Still, I thought I would give it a try.  Oh my!  In the past 24 hours I have discovered that, oddly enough, I am rarely in my own business  AND when I make a conscious choice to let go of other’s business and be in my own business…I am really happy and peaceful.  Who knew?

I can’t wait to read the rest of the book and see what else can happen if I stay in my own business.  Is it really possible that I could turn into one of those really happy, present people who oozes peace like a Buddha on a Benadryl.  I think I would like that.  So here’s the really exciting news, I’m not only reading Byron Katie’s book, I’m interviewing her on my radio show this Monday at 4 pm PST – 7pm EST.  You can tune in and listen to my chat with Katie by visiting www.toginet.com.  Better yet if you want to work on getting your inner Buddha on give us a call during the live show and you can chat with Katie too!  Simply call 877.864.4869 during the live show.  For more information on Bryon Katie and “The Work” that she does visit  www.thework.com. You can find her book, Loving What Is, by visiting here.

Space Geeks Unite…and Stand in Line!

by Shannon Penrod

“Welcome to Disneyland for Geeks!”  That’s what the tour guide said as he opened the door to the “Dark Room” at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab today.  Once a year they hold an open house and this year for the first time guests were allowed to enter the mission control room.   My son and I were part of the 30,000 people who stood in line for hours this weekend to see the magic up close and personal.  It was cool.

It was amazing to see the slice of humanity that showed up to see this unique spectacle.  There were new-born babies and seniors with walkers.  There were teenagers in Goth gear and young couples, race, nationality and ethnicity was represented.  There we all were, sharing a similar passion – SPACE.  So we all stood in line, and stood in line some more.  Oye!  There was a lot of standing in line!  But I have to say, the wait was worth it.

I stood with my son and looked down into the clean room where the Mars Laboratory Rover “Curiosity” sat waiting to be shipped to Cape Canaveral for a lift off in September and an August 2010 arrival on Mars.  We saw it, the actual rover, not a model, not a fabrication….the real deal.  When that rocket takes off later this year my son and I will feel a connection; that’s something that money can’t buy.

Since he could speak in sentences my son has said that when he grows up he wants to be a rocket engineer.  As we walked through the halls of JPL I asked him is he thought he might work here one day.  He not only told me that he would, he told me where he thought his office would be.  I took a picture of it. Someday I plan to visit him in that office.  Hopefully Moms of rocket engineers don’t have to stand in line to see their kid’s offices!

We ended the day by watching a beautiful film that was narrated by Harrison Ford.  He closed the film by reminding us that we are all made of star-dust.  That alone was worth standing in line.

James Durbin is MY American Idol

by Shannon Penrod

Well the verdict is in and I don’t agree.  James Durbin won’t be the winner of American Idol 2011 but there are some contests that are even more important than Idol and as a proud Autism Mom I know that James Durbin has already won them. 

James Durbin

Not to take anything away from the other contestants, I’m sure they have all overcome some adversity to get where they are, but I know first hand that it can’t compare to what James has surmounted.  He is a true champion.

He stood in tears at the end and proudly said that he had done what he had come to do.  I think that’s true, James, but I don’t think it was to give metal a chance.  Okay, maybe that was part of it, but you also gave a lot of us hope.  To watch you sing every week, to watch you own that stage lifted my heart and reminded me that all things are possible.  You helped me and thousands of other mothers remember that dreams don’t have to be deferred by Autism.  You were brilliant, and the “Autism thing” was incidental, a foot note…irrelevent…what a lovely gift. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

James Durbin, you are my American Idol.  I will buy your records and I will go to your concerts and I will listen to metal.  Rock on my friend!