extra ordinary

So, the thing with Jackson is that he's different. There are words like immature, Asperger's, objective-defiant disorder, genius, gifted and boy that all seem to fit him at times. Basically, I'm not interested in labels and diagnosis. I just want to deal with Jackson as the person that he is.
Today he taught Sloane to knit. Watching the show Charlie and Lola is like being with Jackson and Sloane. The other day he decided to make a list of mammals, which brings up questions like "Do Octopuses hear?" he filled three + pages.
He sometimes gets REALLY REALLY ANGRY over very minor disturbances to his things. He doesn't have control over a lot, as he's 7 and he's in a family that has to work with 5 other people and their schedules/likes/dislikes/attitudes.
He's amazingly kind and responsible and shockingly immature at times. Yesterday at the park a mom came up to me and asked "Is that older boy your son?" She wanted to tell me how kind and thoughtfully he included her younger son in a game he was playing with another kid. Today his zoology teacher told me he was incredibly smart and made great contributions to the class. This is a slice of the one and only Jackson.

Sloane's world

Sloane is 4 and a half years old. She's darling and wonderful and frequently writes me letters which say "To the best Mommy and Daddy in the world who are the best we could ever even know about having such a good mommy and daddy and I love you so much even so much more than the biggest house and even more than a tree and I think you are very, very, very great."
She draws these intricate drawings that contain lots of little parts and careful pieces all over. They are machines that can bring us pancakes and houses and people. There are letters scattered through the drawings S, L, A, B, E, N, M, W and she doesn't put them together to make her name but sometimes writes a string of letters to ask what it says.
Sloane is very mothering, always looks out for Cort.
Apricots are her favorite food and she'll eat fruit all day long if I let her.
The other day Sloane learned to pump all by herself on the swing. Jackson taught her by tying a jump rope to her swing and pulling it to swing her until she got the motion on her own. As she pumped herself up high she sang out "Jackson is my HERO."
She has been following him around and answers all his requests with "Yes, your majesty" for two weeks since.

How I spent my summer vacation

Today we cut up old t-shirts to make spy masks a la Teenage Mutant Ninja Solleys.

opps, I did it again!

Crazy in other ways too

Today
Bill is running a 50 mile race. I have not been supportive of this in any way...but he's doing it anyway just because he can't do anything on a normal level...running 26 miles is not enough, he does that every other week, running 30 miles is not enough...we have to be all extreme so he's going for 50 miles today and I am getting ice for his 'ice bath' later and we are making a sign for him to smile at as he crosses the finish line today in the 95 degree heat.


Jackson got heelys at the thrift store the other day for $4. He could hardly walk out of the store wearing them for the first time because they are heavy and akward with wheels on the back heels. Then he fell over and over and worked at it for HOURS as he slowly and steadily got very good. Now he can do all sorts of tricks. He totally has Bill's determination and gets fixated on things: knitting, reading every book in the Wizard of Oz series, heelys, legos.
As I was taking these wheely photos I noticed the background of my messy kitchen. Piles of papers and dirty dishes...and an iron (it came with the apartment) and a towel because my coutnertop is my ironing board and because sometimes I do little projects.

Today I ignored the dishes, made my bed, got dressed, schlepped the kids to the thrift store (yes...again!) because I wanted to reconstruct an old man's work shirt into a cutesy girl shirt. This seems to be the style Billie has mostly adopted; at the moment she has these half-finished projects in SIGHT of where I sit right now, newspaper basketweaving, a theater ticket stub scrapbook, 2 crochet projects, her own poster for Dad because she didn't want the other kids messing up her drawings, and one construction paper 'tape player' she's planning to use as a prop in our next play. I won't list the arty things I'm working on at the moment but I may have more going than she does and if you were to calculate a rate I probably finish about 45% of the things I start. Bill does everything he puts he puts his mind to. If only I could get him to commit to putting his socks in the laundry bin and he could rely on me to actually get to the grocery store...