Robots on the Road, the Final Chapter

Well, we finally made it to Washington yesterday. The last day of our drive was nice and easy. We drove through the panhandle of Idaho and all across Washington. It was a beautiful drive.

We got into town and went to see our new house before we checked into our hotel. We love the house. It's nice and big and has a beautiful yard. I don't think I have enough furniture to fill it. I'm really excited about the double oven in the kitchen, and the fireplace in the living room. We should be into the house with our things on Monday.

We enjoyed a nice swim in the hotel pool then went to have dinner with friends we haven't seen since we renewed our vows almost two years ago. Lilly started the dinner off wrong when she noticed a claw machine upon entering the restaurant. So all thru our meal we got to listen to Lilly ask for babies, till she finished and got so out of hand we had to take her out to the car. Not a huge deal for us, we're used to this. However, as I was getting up to take Lilly out, Maria mentioned that her legs were shaking. I had to carry her out to the car they were so bad. We got everyone back to the hotel, and Maria's legs shook for over three hours. By the end her hands were moving too.

I got a lot of video to show her new neurologist, and we'll see what comes of that. We had a rough first night, but I think we always have a rough first night when we move. At least we got it out of the way. So we're starting fresh this morning, we're off to explore.

So here we are, a family of robots, in Washington.

A Robot Birthday

When Lilly was born John and I were 20 years old. Okay, I was 20 years old. John would want me to point out that he was still two weeks away from turning 20. John and I were 21 when I became convinced that there was something wrong with Lilly. We were 22 and on the brink of having our second child when we were told that Lilly would never be like other children, 23 when she was officially diagnosed with autism. We were 24 and had just had our third child when we were told that Lilly was most likely severely impaired and we should understand that we would have to eventually put her in some kind of institution.

Lilly's birthdays have never been easy. A video of her first would show a child laying on the floor and screaming while I opened her presents and pretended this was how all first birthdays went. We spent her second birthday in the hospital having an EEG for suspected seizures. As Lilly's gotten older, her birthdays have become markers for milestones Lilly will never reach. Every year for a few days John and I lose the ability to pretend that Lilly is still a baby and it's okay that she's not potty trained and can't speak more than a few rote phrases.

Last night John and I were preparing for the small party we'll have for Lilly today. I wrapped her gifts and as I was filling out the card to go with them, I lost it. I was writing, Happy 15th Birthday, and I suddenly realized, I'm writing this card to myself. I should be writing a card to a teenage girl, telling her about how grown up she's become and how proud we are of her. I should be worried about her dating and preparing for college. Instead, I'm writing a card that only I will read, that she won't even listen to, or understand. I'm worrying about her waking up in the middle of the night and needing to be changed and whether or not we'll be able to manage her mental illness well enough to keep her home past her 18th birthday. This is not where I thought we'd be, late that night 15 years ago when my baby girl came screaming into this world.

So John and I took a minute to cry, as we need to do every year, to mourn the Lilly who never was and never will be. We are 35 years old (well, obviously John is still two weeks away from being 35), and I know we'll still be doing this when we're 65 years old. That knowledge is daunting, but today we'll dry our tears and go back to loving Lilly just the way she is, and I know we'll be doing that when we're 65, too. We'll treasure her giggles and hold her when she cries, she'll tell us she's a treasure and we'll repeat it back to her, knowing it's the truth.

So here we are, a family of robots, treasuring what we have.

Robots Make a House a Home

Hello again! Like the new layout? The picture was done by  Danielle Davis. She has a shop on etsy.com and she drew these robots to make into vinyl stickers for my car. I loved them so much I asked her if she'd send me the file to use on my blog and she happily did! So go check out Danielle's store!

We've been in Jersey for a few weeks now. We expected to close on our new house on September 12th, but as always in this robot's life, things did not go as expected. My parents were nice enough to let us stay in their empty rental property and put up with us coming over for internet access and countless dinners for so much longer than they expected. I really can't thank them enough. The new district wouldn't let the girls start until after we closed on the house, so they have been with us all day every day for this whole ridiculous process.

But, after many, many delays, we finally closed on our house last Wednesday! We immediately mailed the change of address cards I had made back in August in Washington, grabbed the kids from my Mom's and headed over to our new house!

With the help of my sister, Crystal, and her husband Bill, we dragged all the things we brought with us cross country into the house. Ria wasn't feeling very well and while we were unloading, my sister mentioned that she was in her room crying. When I found her, she explained that she was sad because we'd had to leave her friends in Washington and that our new house was empty and lonely and smelled like old ladies.  I calmed her down with tales of how wonderful our new life will be and promised we'd start making our house less empty and old lady smelly.  We had some lunch and then we headed to the hardware store. We started making this house into our home that very night.

We started with Ria's bathroom in an effort to make her feel like she'd put her own stamp on the house. She picked out the paint for her room and zebra stripped accessories for her bathroom. I hung up her new bathroom curtains and shower curtain and got everything else in it's place and it really seemed to make her feel better.

After getting all the girls to bed, John and I painted Lilly's room... and that's the sort of thing we've been doing ever since. We've made 8,000 trips to Lowes, Walmart and Target, we've painted three room and will be working on a a fourth and fifth tonight. We took down curtains, and hung up new ones, removed countless closet doors and hid them in the basement. We registered the girls for school, only to be told the district thinks Maria needs to be home schooled for medical reasons and they lost the IEP I sent in August for Lilly, so it's going to take them a week to figure out her placement. We've had the phone company here three times to try to get our internet service set up right.

We've also been to my parent's house for paella,

had Bill and Crystal come over to help us paint the dining room and went to a wedding shower today.
We've been busy little robots and with all the work we want to do the the house, we'll be this busy for a while.
We're tired and we're sore, but here we are, a family of robots, making this house a home.

Robots on the Road: Day Nine

Ok! This won't be long because I only have internet access while we sit in McDonald's eating breakfast.

Yesterday was our last day on the road! We slept in then packed up and headed out to have breakfast with Mom and Dad.  Everyone enjoyed themselves, especially Lilly, because they let her have chicken nuggets and french fries with applesauce.

Hana and Saffron decided they wanted to ride with PopPop and Babcia, and off we went.  It was a pleasantly uneventful drive with the exception of me getting pulled over (it's ok, I didn't get a ticket).

We got to Mom And Dad's, had REAL pizza AND water ice, then got settled and called it a  night. Now we have to wait  to go to closing on our house, and then we'll really be home.

So here we are, a family of robots, in Pitman, New Jersey!

Robots on the Road: Day Eight

We're almost home! Today we got on the road at 7am and we were so excited to get on our way! We drove through the rest of Tennessee today along with Virginia and a lot of West Virginia. We could not get here fast enough!

My Mom and Dad own some land down here and came down for the weekend to meet us. We were so thrilled! We met them and had a great lunch. John ordered a salad with seafood and was so disappointed when it arrived covered with cheese. Luckily, Dad was willing to trade with him and everyone ended up happy with their lunch.

We followed Mom and Dad up to their land and it was so great to finally see it! Saffron explored and got spoiled by PopPop and Babcia a little. Hana checked out all the flora and fauna and both the girls were chatting away about "when we come live here" when we were on our way to our hotel for the night. Ria says she's going to make homemade soap and candles to make some money here, because"everyone loves homemade soap and candles!".

We arrived at our hotel, took a swim, chatted with another parent of an autistic child who was in the pool and watched a boy get a crush on Hana. It was so cute watching him try to impress her.

That's all I've got for today, I'm just so delighted that we'll be home tomorrow!
Jersey here we come!

So here we are, a family of enthusiastic robots, in Morgantown, West Virginia.

Robots on the Road: Day Seven

We got a lovely, slow start today. We slept in until 6:30, took our time getting ready and headed out for breakfast.   We ate, did a little shopping and didn't get on the road until almost 10 am. We headed out of Memphis, on our way to Knoxville.

 But, today was a solemn day for us. We came to Knoxville to go to a cemetery.  

Many of you know that John has been estranged from his parents for about 8 years now. They made some life choices that we felt we needed to separate ourselves from.  We love them and we've missed them, but we feel it was the right decision to make. 

This spring one of John's cousins got in touch with us through facebook and said she needed to speak to us urgently. John's father had passed away.  John spoke to his grandmother and decided not to attend the funeral. It was not an easy decision, but he thought it was for the best. So since we were on our way cross country, we decided to come to Knoxville so we could go to the Veteran's Cemetery to see where John's father was laid to rest.

All day I was thinking about the girls Pappy. I remembered how he accepted me quickly when John and I quickly got married at age 19. Johnny loved me, and that was good enough for him. He was a quiet man but he was kind to me. I remembered how much he loved being a grandfather.  When Lilly was born, John and I were living with his parents. Lilly was a particularly fussy baby and when no one else could get her to sleep, Pappy would quietly say, "Give me my grandbaby.". He would sit in his recliner with her head in one hand and her bottom in the other and look at her with so much love it would bring tears to my eyes. Then he would hold her and rock her and talk to her softly, and slowly, she would fall asleep in his arms. 

When Lilly was in preschool, John called his mother, distraught because the social worker at the school had told us we should get Lilly on a waiting list for a group home. She told us someday we wouldn't be able to take care of Lilly on our own anymore. The next time John saw his father, his father was very angry with him. "When you and Leah decide you can't handle Lilly anymore, you bring her to me and your mother. We'll take care of her.", he said. I was so angry at the time. What made him think they could take care of her if I couldn't?  I realize now that it didn't have anything to do with who he thought could or couldn't take care of Lilly. He just loved her so much, he couldn't stand the idea of her being somewhere without people who love her.

No matter how much we love someone, we can't make them the person we want them to be. All we can do is love them for who they are. 

So here we are, a family of robots, remembering in Knoxville, Tennessee. 

Robots on the Road: Day Six

Quote of the day: "Peach soda is so good, it makes me do duck lips!"- Hana

When I woke up at 12:45 this morning to the sound of Lilly vomiting, I didn't think it was going to be a good day. When Lilly wouldn't go back to sleep at 1:30 this morning, I thought it was super cute that she kept giggling and saying "Hello!", but I was sure it wasn't going to be a good day. When we woke up late because Lilly kept us up until 2:30am, I was positive the day was going to be awful.

It was a great day. We got everyone out of the hotel in a hurry, grabbed breakfast and filled the gas tanks and were on the road by 7am.  We headed out of Wichita, KS and were on our way. We had nine hours of driving ahead of us.

Lilly was asleep before we were out of Kansas. I yelled back to Hana as usual, "We're in Oklahoma, Hana!".  From the back of the van I hear, " We're in Oklahoma? Saffron! I mean, Toto! I don't think we're in Kansas anymore!", and so we began our laughter filled day.

I don't have much to say about Oklahoma, I think Hana said it best, "At least it's not as flat as Kansas.".

 We stopped a few times for potty breaks and snacks and hit Arkansas before lunch. We stopped at a gas station in Razorback territory and unloaded everyone for one more potty break. As usual Lilly found a doll she wanted and some juice and a snack. The man behind the counter asked Lilly if the doll was her baby and Lilly said "Baby.  I'm a treasure. I'm pretty special." and he was so tickled with her he gave her the doll for free.

We got stuck in traffic as we got closer to the border of Tennessee and the girls were chatting about some book series they both love. Hana said that one character should give another character a rottweiler puppy. Ria said that a dachshund should be the pet given as a gift. They discussed the merits of both breeds and Hana insisted that because of something that happened in the book, a rottweiler was the better choice. I was only half listening to them when I heard Ria say, "Hana you shouldn't say that rottweilers are better in front of Saffron. You're going to give her low self esteem! You're hurting her self esteem right now!" We all laughed so hard! Ria has a really dry sense of humor, but she cracks us up!

We finally arrived at our hotel, got settled and headed out to dinner. We ate at a BBQ place called Marlowe's that we saw on Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives. It was fantastic! We ate corn fritters that were wonderful. John had some mouthwatering brisket with beans and coleslaw, Ria had a fried catfish sandwich. Hana and I ate BBQ spaghetti, something I would never have imagined eating. It was homemade pasta topped with BBQ pork and the house BBQ sauce and it was amazing! The rolls were deep fried and tasted like zeppoli, only less eggy. The mac and cheese that came as a side with Hana's was dinner was a beautiful thing. I highly recommend it to any one visiting.

We came back to our hotel to swim in the guitar shaped pool

and now we're all chilling out and listening to the pouring rain outside. Occasionally walking out on the balcony to see the flooding in the parking lot.
Tomorrow is a short day, so we are going to try to sleep in and find a good place for breakfast.

So here we are,a family of robots, in Memphis, Tennessee.

The lobby of our hotel, which is right next to Graceland.