Everything Everywhere All At Once

My sister told me that her life right now reminds her of the title of the movie Everything Everywhere All At Once. And I decided that this was a good title for my post about the first week of May. 

Really it could refer to the whole month of May, but it's especially descriptive of that week. 

So let's relive a crazy, jam packed week. 

I started May in Boise. I'd driven up to Boise the day before and spent most of Sunday relaxing in my hotel room watching The Crown on Netflix. But on Monday morning it was time to get around to what I was in Boise for. I was there for a board meeting with Idaho Parents Unlimited. 

I was voted onto the board last year and attended my first meeting via Zoom in January. This was my first in person meeting with IPUL. Actually this was my first time even going to the IPUL office. 

Quick recap of my relationship with IPUL. Back in 2018 IPUL staff helped me understand the process to get Derrick access to Children's Developmental Disability Services (DDS). This is the program that pays for his behavioral therapy. It was such a blessing. I really don't know what we would have done without that program. And I wouldn't have known about it without help from IPUL. 

In 2020 I was supposed to go to Parent Leadership Development Institute with IPUL. However that was cancelled due to COVID. And it hasn't worked to go back since. But I've still kept in contact with IPUL. I often say that my Autism Support group really only exists to direct people to IPUL. 

Anyway, last fall my friend Renee asked if I'd want to be on the board. She assumed I'd be too busy, but she happened to catch me at the perfect time. I was done with school and feeling like I needed another project. Joining IPUL was actually the LAST new project I took on. 

So anyway, I was in Boise for an in person Board meeting and for Board Training. Five of the other board members were there for the training so it wasn't just for me. I was able to meet the president, vice president, and secretary, as well as one other member. And my friend Renee was there too. We went over board member responsibilities and the separation of the board from the day to day operations.  That took most of the morning. 

IPUL provided lunch from Jimmy Johns for all of us. That was really nice. (The hotel had been paid for by them too.) Then we had our real board meeting. The board is supposed to have between 9-15 members, but apparently they've been a little low lately. This time there were 5 new members to consider so we went over their applications and voted them all in. It will be very nice to have a fuller board. (At least that's what everyone else said. I was still learning the ropes.)

We discussed the possible need for a new treasurer in the near future. And guess who opened their mouth and said they'd love to do that job?  Me. Yeah, not really a surprise. 

Actually being the treasurer of the board is more of an oversight thing and not so much a book keeping thing. (Remember board members don't get involved in the day to day operations.) So this shouldn't be too much of an extra responsibility. 

Anyway, the whole day was great and I was excited to finally see the IPUL office in person and meet the rest of the board members. I'm looking forward to our next in person meeting in October. 

I drove straight home to Twin Falls after the meeting was over. I got home around 6:30. I walked into the house and found Derrick and Brandon working on their airplane. This has been so fun for both of them. 

So what had the kids and Brandon been up to while I was gone?

Well they went to church on Sunday morning and then they went for a hike in the Canyon.  They may or may not have found Mermaid Cove. (Brandon described it to me and it sounded like Mermaid Cove, but the hike to it didn't sound right. They've promised to take me back so I can see it. 

On Monday Brandon went to work at 5:30, but then came home at 7:00 to help get the kids to school.  Then he went back to work. He was off work in time to get Derrick and Veronica from school. 

All in all they had a good time and really didn't miss me too much. 

Tuesday was a reentry day. A long time ago I heard Jen Fulwiller explain reentry days. She said that after a vacation you expect to come back relaxed and happy and have blissful feelings. But what happens is that you experience reentry into your regular life and it's AWFUL. You get used to it again, but it takes a few days. I knew about that reentry feeling and I knew Tuesday would be rough. So I just kind of gritted my teeth and got through it. 

I got the kids ready for school and walked Derrick and Veronica over to the school.  We didn't see it in the morning. But later I noticed the "We Love our Staff" sign that the PTO had put up by the Staff parking lot. This was the beginning of Teacher Appreciation Week. I'd written the check for this sign the week earlier. It's always kind of fun to see the stuff I helped make happen show up. (I also didn't feel bad about not giving the teachers individual gifts for teacher appreciation week.  I was like, "My gift is that you have a PTO. You're welcome."
 

I took the girls to school and then went to work. I'd only missed one day of work, but I had a lot to catch up on. Monday is the day I receive a lot of payments.  I also had to send out billing statements for past due clients. I think I worked something like 5 hours. I got home from work after Brandon did. 

Then it was time to do the double whammy of taking Veronica to Therapy followed by Tutoring. 

Veronica meets with her therapist without me. I hang out in the lobby on very comfy leather couches. I always inevitably fall asleep on those couches. I'm sure if the staff at that office ever found out that I was a board member for IPUL they'd be like, "There's no way THAT mom is a board member."

I'm also pretty certain Veronica's tutor would think the same thing. I have to sit in on those sessions because I'm supposed to be working with Veronica at home on the days we don't have tutoring. We barely have time to work on anything at home. And lately I've been forgetting to bring our binder. I'm sure her tutor would be like, "There's no way THAT mom is a board member."

I just have hidden talents. 

I made it through the day and I have no memory of anything we did that evening. 

Let's just take a break and look at yard pictures. 

Here's the plum tree looking all green and not dead. That's good. Last year it went into shock after we planted it.  (Or more accurately after it got snowed on after being planted.) And most of the branches died. This year that didn't happen. 

The sweet cherry tree started to bloom. I had hope that the tart cherry tree would follow right along. (The sweet needs the tart in order to make fruit.)

I was happy to see that my tulips were blooming in the front garden bed. 

The peas were getting taller. 

The peach tree was close to blooming. 

Okay, now we are on to Wednesday.  And buckle up because this was the most Everything Everywhere All At Once day of the whole month. I quite literally had to be two places at once that evening. There was a big celebration for the whole school district at the City Park that evening from 4:30 to 7:00. At 7:00 Charlotte had an Orchestra Concert at the Roper Auditorium. She had to be there at 6:30. All day I was puzzling over how to be fully present at both things. 

The day started out normal enough. I dropped Derrick and Veronica off at the elementary school and then drove Charlotte and Lydia to school. Then I went right to work again. I was able to get a lot done. 

I might have had time to make it to Yoga, but I felt like it was better to finish things up at work and then really take time for lunch at home.  So I did that. 

I also took care of computer stuff at home like the bank account, and writing an invoice for Brandon's business, and who knows what else. 

Around 2:15 I headed over to the school to get things ready for that evening. The School District was hosting an "Engage in Education" event at the city park. Each school would have a choir or group perform at the band shell. Each school would also have a table highlighting things from the school. We were planning to reuse a lot of stuff from last year on our table. But the stuff had migrated around the closet. I wasn't sure the PTO president would be able to find it.  And since she hadn't been part of our PTO last year I wasn't sure she would even know what she was looking for.  

So I went over to hunt it all down and compile it into totes. I found the table cloth the district gave us last year and the table runner one of the mom's made. I found the picture frames (that still had last years pictures in them). We had a giant tote full to the brim with what looked like prizes from some long ago carnival. We'd considered selling them on Mustang Days, but since we didn't know how old the toys were we didn't feel good selling them. In a planning meeting we decided that this would be a great opportunity to just give them away. So I made sure to pull out that tote.  I also grabbed some nice baskets to put the toys into. I decided that our table needed a little more oomph so I went into the staff lounge and grabbed some of the little fake plants that Liz had added to that room last year. 

While I was doing all that I ran into Derrick. His class was getting popsicles in the lunch room. It was so close to the end of school I just had him come with me. He found a wheelchair on the stage and played with that while I pulled things out of the closet. Then he helped me carry the boxes to the office. The President would come pick them up and take them to the park. 

Derrick and I met up with Veronica and made sure she got to her Art Class. Then we walked home. At home I took a moment to take more pictures of my flowers. 

Gosh I love these.

I love this new area around the Rose of Sharron Tree. 

Everytime I ran the scenarios for that evening in my head I imagined myself doing everything. I wasn't sure if Brandon would have an RV or something that would take him away from helping. But he didn't and he reminded me that he was perfectly capable of transporting children from Point A to Point B as well. 

That reminder greatly simplified the planning going on in my head.  We decided that I would go to the park around 4:00. I'd be able to help with setting up the table and managing it. Brandon would take care of picking up Veronica from Art at 4:00 and then he'd bring the kids to the park sometime after 4:30. He'd hang around until it was time to take Charlotte to the Roper at 6:15. And then I'd bring the rest of the kids to the Roper in time to be there at 7:00. It felt good to get that all figured out. 

Everything went off really well.  I arrived just Berenice and Alyssa were adding the final touches to our table. It looked GREAT! 

I spent most of the time just pulling toys out of the bin and putting them into their baskets on the table. Kids were so excited to find out they could get things for free. We let them take two things. (Though I know that there were several kids who came through twice.) 

At first Alyssa's son was wearing the mascot outfit. But he got board of it and took it off. When Lydia arrived she took a turn as the mascot. 

She liked it a lot. 

Derrick came with me to the park and had a great time running around. The school board was serving hot dogs and chips. Derrick had a hot dog. And then another one. And towards the end he got three. 

Veronica was having fun getting things.  She got a Twin Falls high School Shirt and an Oleary Middle School shirt. And she took one of each whistle that we were giving away.  We had some purple whistles that no one could figure out until Derrick messed around with one for about 5 minutes.  He figured out how to make the LOUDEST whistle of all. Veronica thought that was great. 

Just as we planned, Brandon took Charlotte to the Roper. She already had her violin and her clothes in the car. She even changed her clothes in the car. 

I took the other kids around 6:45. We got there just as it was about to start. This was a combined concert with one of the other middle schools and with the high school. They started out with the beginner orchestra.  And once again I was surprised to see Charlotte in the "Concert Master" chair. 

She'd had this spot at the last concert and I'd casually tried to figure out if she'd been assigned that chair by her teacher or if she'd just kind of picked it. She'd told me that she'd just picked and and wanted to know why I was asking. So I told her it was kind of a big deal to sit there.  She must have remembered that because she made sure to have that seat again this time. 

The concert was really good.  The little baby beginner class has come along way this year.  They played three songs.  Then they got off the stage and the combined intermediate orchestra came on. They we so good. I'm pretty certain those 7th and 8th graders are better than my highschool orchestra ever was. 

Then the beginner class came back onto the stage.  There were something like 96 students on the stage. 

They all played a song called Dragon Hunter.  Charlotte has loved playing this song. I haven't uploaded the video to Youtube yet. But I think that this link will take you to the video in my google photos. Let me know if it doesn't work for you and we can figure it out. 

I was kind of thinking that we might need to bug out from the concert after the Middle School kids were done, but everyone was actually doing really well. We'd found Derrick's "quiet headphones" over the weekend so he was wearing those. So we stuck around for the high school kids. 

They were all really good too. It was kind of fun to imagine that Charlotte might be up there with them some day. 

I really haven't tried to put too much pressure on Charlotte about playing the violin. Mostly I just want her to have fun with it. But I can't deny that we do have some musical genes running through the family. My brother Billy is a fantastic professional French Horn player. (Who just got a new job with the Vancouver Symphony in British Columbia.) So there is something to be said for Charlotte doing well with music. But there's also me and my three sisters who didn't play past Jr high or high school. So year, mostly we are just in this for fun.

Speaking of fun, want to know what was in my bag during the whole concert?  Something like 7 hotdogs. Derrick and Veronica had sweet talked their way into a lot of hot dogs. But they didn't have time (or room) to eat them before the concert. I didn't want to leave the hot dogs in the hot car. So I put them in my purse and took them into the airconditioned concert hall. 

Yep, there's no way that lady with 7 hot dogs in her purse is a board member. Not a chance.  

We got home close to 9:00. I'd been gone since 4:00. The kids had been gone from home since about 5:00. It had been a long afternoon/evening. But we'd done it.  I felt so much better knowing that this day was behind me. The rest of May would be easy now that we'd survived that day. 

Or at least relatively easy.

Okay, time for Thursday AKA the day that a field trip snuck up on me. The third grade was going on a field trip to Skateland and I'd volunteered to go. I knew that the field trip was on Thursday. I knew it was in the afternoon. I knew that I normally work on Thursday afternoons.  But it wasn't until about 10:00 AM on Thursday that it all clicked and I realized that the field trip would prevent me from going into work that afternoon.

If I'd figured it out earlier I might have been able to trade times with our intake coordinator who I share an office with. I could have come in in the morning or something. But I hadn't thought of that.  And I'd gone grocery shopping that morning. 

When I got home from shopping I put away all the perishable stuff and then pushed everything else aside so I could have room on the dining room table for my laptop. I signed into my work account and emailed my boss that I wasn't coming in and that I was just working from home for a bit. 

For the billionth time I was so thankful that I have such a flexible job.

I actually got a surprising amount of stuff done in that little hour of work. But I also cut a lot of corners. I'd spent the first 30 minutes of work on Friday finishing up the things I mostly did on Thursday. 

Around 12:00 I headed over to the elementary school and met up with Veronica's class. Parents had the option of riding the bus to Skateland or just meeting up there.  Veronica wanted me to ride with her. That sounded fun so that's what I did. Another student asked me when the last time I'd been on a school bus. I think I might have been on one in college for a geology fieldtrip, but its also possible that was a chartered bus. I rode one for family day when the kids and I visited Brandon on the range on Fort Hood, but that was a white Army buss.  I can confidently say I rode on a yellow school bus for a field trip in the spring of my Sr year.  That was 20 years ago.  Thanks little 3rd grader for making me feel old. 

We got to skateland and I immediately put my skate lacing skills to use. Actually I think I was putting my "mother of multiple children who couldn't tie their own shoes for YEARS" skills to use.  I literally just sat on the floor and laced skates after skates after skates.  Kids would come over and ask me to help them and I'd point out who was ahead of them and tell them to wait. 

After about 20 minutes all the kids were laced and skating. Or at least skating.  There were a lot of beginners. Which was good.  Usually Veronica is very self conscious of how much better the three older kids are at skating. This time she was there with a bunch of beginners like her. 

She skated for a while and then wanted to go to the snack bar. I bought us each an ice cream cone. 

Parker came over and I bought him one too. That kid is so fun. At one point he and I were singing along to Taylor Swift's Antihero. 

And somehow Veronica talked me into buying cotton candy. She said she was Santa in this picture. 

I spent some time taking picture of my friends kids and texting them the pictures. One little girl started out not very confident.  But about 30 minutes later she skated by me and said, "I think I figured out how to skate."  And about 30 minutes after that she said, "Can you take a video and show my mom." So I did. Her mom just had a baby so she was happy to be getting the updates. 

Around 3:15 it was time to start helping the kids out of their skates.  This didn't take as long as putting them on, but it was still a process. Then we got the kids back onto the buses and drove back to the school.  

Veronica and I picked up Derrick and then the three of us went straight to her tutoring lesson. Derrick was really good and just hung out in the lobby and watched Youtube on my phone. At the end of the lesson he got to pick out a prize too. He picked a kite. 

When we got home he put the kite together all by himself and then went outside and flew it in the front yard for something like 2 hours. 

That evening Brandon and I had a meeting at the church with two members of the Primary Presidency, Derrick's primary teachers, and the parents of another little boy in Derrick's class. I totally went into the meeting thinking that it was going to be all about how dangerous Derrick can be.  He'd bit a kid on Sunday, and he's hit the other kid whose parents were at the meeting. 

I was really to have a discussion all about how "bad" Derrick is.  But it wasn't like that at all. It was a super loving and productive meeting about how to best help Derrick and the other little boy get the most out of the class.  Apparently the other kid is possibly on the Autism Spectrum. The teachers wanted to talk to us parents about what works best for our kids. Over the next hour we came up with so many good ideas. Some of them were.

1. Move the class to a bigger classroom. They have like 8 or 9 boys and one girl in that class, but they are in a small classroom. I suggested they move back to the room they had 2 years ago which is much bigger. 

2. Call a helper to the class to help with all the boys so the teachers can focus on teaching. 

3. Don't let the class out of the room for singing time until a member of the primary class comes to get them. (Apparently the whole class goes crazy the minute they are allowed out in the hall. There have been incidents with ALL the boys over the drinking fountain.) 

4. Have a fireside at the teachers house where they talk about how they are going into the Young Men Program next year and will be a Quorum of brothers so they need to treat each other nice and help each other out.

5. I feel like there was one more thing. But I can't think of it right now. 

I also made it very clear that no one has to feel afraid of Derrick. If he's threatening someone or making them uncomfortable they can tell an adult and Derrick will have consequences. 

Anyway, it was a super good meeting. I was so happy about how it all turned out. 

And now we are on to Friday, which was another day where I nearly double booked myself. 

The kids didn't have school which was good because it meant I could go into work a little earlier and do the stuff I hadn't done on Thursday.  I had to leave by 9:30 though because I had to take Charlotte and Lydia to the orthodontist.  This was the day they were getting their braces officially onto their top teeth. They've had "braces" since Octoberish, but it's just been the Marah device so that hasn't counted. Now they have braces on each tooth so its for real. 

Here's Lydia.

And here's Charlotte. 

They loved having braces, but they didn't like how they hurt at first. 

And here's Derrick playing with his kite again. 

I had the kids help me clean up the house. And then a little after lunch Bestemor and Bestefar showed up. Jacque had heard about an event called Shoshone Falls After Dark so we'd planned for them to come this weekend for a while. But when we'd first planned it I hadn't realized that the kids would be out of school.  So it worked out extra well. 

When Brandon got home from work we went out to do some sight seeing.  Our first stop was the Cloverdale Creamery in Buhl. We all got ice cream cones.  This is something the kids have wanted to do with Steve and Jacque for a while. It was also something of a celebration for Charlotte's concert. 

Then we drove over to Hagerman to see the new visitor center for 1000 Springs State Park/ Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument. We actually got there 30 minutes after it closed.  So we couldn't go inside, but it was still cool to see it.  

There was an irrigation ditch next to the building and the kids played in that. 

They found a frog.

Here's the view. 

Then we drove over to the Malad Gorge.  When we got there Steve and Jacque, who were fallowing us in their car, thought we'd taken a wrong turn and were turning around. They were surprised when we parked. They couldn't quite see what this was all about. 

And then we walked to the bridge over the gorge and they were like, "OOOOHHHHH WOW!"

This gorge is just nuts. I've been here so many times, but I never get over how big and deep it is. 

Derrick really wanted to throw some weeds off the bridge. Normally we have a strict no throwing things off of things policy. But since there were no people under the bridge and he was just throwing light weeds I decided to allow it. 

This ended up being super entertaining.  The weeds would float like parasols down to the water. It was some combination of the updrafts under the bridges and the shape of the weeds. Derrick and the other kids threw weed after weed over the side.

Here's another link to a video of him throwing the weeds. 

When we were done with the gorge we went to a picnic area nearby.  The girls played on this tree. 

We'd brought everything to make hoagie sandwiches for dinner.  Lydia and Jacque used some bread to try to feed a very cute squirrel. 

They got it to come very close. 

There was a playground way far away from our picnic area.  Derrick and Veronica ran over there.

They played for a long time. They ended up super sandy. Derrick didn't take a bath between then and church and all during sacrament meeting on Sunday I was playing with his hair and brushing sand off his scalp.

We drove back to Twin Falls and got back around 6:00.  Our tickets for Shoshone Falls After Dark weren't until 10:15.  All the adults were super sleepy.  Steve and Jacque relaxed on our recliner couch and Brandon and I went to take a nap in our room.  I woke up around 8:00 and was like, "What year is it?"  I'd slept so deeply. 

I made a "second dinner" of sorts for us to eat around 9:00.  There was a rain storm kicking up and Brandon and I weren't sure where our emergency preparedness ponchos were.  (I had a sneaking suspicion that we'd deemed them unnecessary/too old when we'd cleaned out the garage.) So Brandon and Steve went to Fred Meyer and bought more ponchos. Then we got into the van and drove over to Shoshone Falls. 

This is an event the Twin Falls Chamber of Commerce (or a similar organization, maybe Southern Idaho Economic Development? I'm too lazy to look it up right now) started 3 years ago.  They shine lights onto Shoshone Falls. The lights change colors and they have some shapes projected on them as well.  They have music playing too.  It's all very cool.  

And yet, our kids didn't quite enjoy it. Poor Veronica didn't have any fun at all.  We hardly ever go anywhere after dark. And we hardly ever go anywhere in the rain. So to be out after dark, in a heavy rain storm was pretty unbearable for her. 

I'm so glad we had the ponchos.  We would have been soaked after being out there for a few minutes and we were there for at least 30 minutes.  

It was pretty cool, and it did get us to look at the waterfall that we take for granted way too much. 

But we are all really happy to go home and get into our nice warm beds. 

Okay now for Saturday. You'd think we'd have a relaxing Saturday after that crazy week. And we kind of did. Everyone slept in.  In fact, I think Derrick was still in bed when Steve and Jacque left around 9:00. 

I went outside to check on the garden. Here's my little red oak tree. 

The Locust was starting to leaf out.

And LOOOOOOK. Both Cherry Trees were blooming. 

The blooms were so pretty.

And the peach tree had decided to bloom too.

It's a pretty tree, but still on the small side. 

The plum tree just had a few blossoms.  But that's about right for this year.  Next year it should have more. 

And look at this.  The rosebush that I'd hacked down was starting to send out growth. 

The blackberries were sending out growth on old branches. 

And from the roots. 

Charlotte made this bouquet of dandilions. 

The tree was putting out little leaves.

And best of all, more of the tulips were blooming. 

This kicked off the 2 weeks of glory in front of my house.

I live for this all year long. 

They are so pretty.

I love these multi petaled daffodils. 

This area is pretty too.  You'd never know I pulled these tulips out of a little strip between a dirt driveway and a fence. 

I'd been a little worried about the Rose of Sharron. So I was happy to see these little green leaves. 

The Catalpa was also sending out tiny leaves. 

More tulips. 

At 11:30 I had to leave to go to a Community Resource Fair in Kimberly. IPUL had been invited to this fair, but they had already allocated out the travel budget for their staff members.  Renee and I volunteered to go.  So I was sent home with a bunch of pamphlets and things. I brought my own table cloth. The fake plants had looked so good on the PTO table on Wednesday so I decided to do that trick again. I grabbed my fake plants and brought them along. 

I set up the table and took care of giving out things from 12:00 to 1:30 when Renee showed up to take over. 

We were set up right next to the table for my work. It was kind of fun to hang out with my boss. He was giving away punching balloons.  I laughed because these were the same type of balloons I'd been giving away on Wednesday. 

The event had a DJ and everything was super loud. I could barely hear anything. It was good that the IPUL staff hadn't come. They wouldn't have been able to have meaningful conversations with anyone.  I was basically yelling, "THIS IS IDAHO PARENTS UNLIMITED. THEY HELP PARENTS OF CHILDEN WITH SPECIAL NEEDS"

It was a relief when Renee showed up and I could get out of that loud place. 

Brandon had brought the kids. They'd already had the free hot dogs and fries that were being served outside. They came inside to see what free stuff they could get from the other booths. 

There was a picture station that the kids had fun with. 

this was funny.

Then we went outside to do the games out there.  This was electronic wack a mole. 

The kids waited in a long line to have a chance to play in these big balls. 

The three older kids had a blast crashing into eachother. 

But Veronica didn't like it as much.  She got knocked down a lot and didn't like that. 

Brandon took the kids home and I stayed to clean up.  Then I went home too. 

I had a phone call with my parents. And then I was done for the day. It was like my body ran out of energy.  I just kind of did nothing for the rest of the day. We talked about doing a fire, but it was too rainy.  So that ended our streak of doing fires every Saturday night. We'd done one every Saturday in April.

That night after the kids were in bed Brandon had a surprise for me.  He'd set up the loft of the garage all cute with Christmas lights.  He'd pumped up the air mattress and had his computer all ready.  So we had a date out there and watched movies.  

We probably should have only watched one movie.  But we watched another one and were up until 2:00.  I was so tired the next morning. 

Somehow we all made it to church. But after church I was GRUMPY.  So I took a super long nap. When I woke up from the nap it was like I had a whole new personality. I was happy again. 

We watched Spiderman Far From Home that evening. I'd never seen that one. I ended up really liking it. I immediately reserved Spiderman No Way Home as soon as we were done. The kids didn't know it, but No Way Home was the whole reason we'd started this little project. I was looking forward to finally watching that movie with the kids. 

And that's the end of the super busy first week of May.  

And don't worry the rest of the month was actually a little simpler than that week. Sure it was busy, but it wasn't jam packed busy. 

I hope to write about the other weeks soon. 

Thanks for reading.