My oldest girl teaching her brother to read music and play the piano. He now has the opening notes of the "Star Wars" theme down, man. Watching them like this makes every moment of my entire life make sense.
Today my son and I put the plastic, light up tree in its spot on the balcony and he decorated it with tiny ornaments and candy canes. I would have put the tree out anyway, but we had to put the tree out there, because this is when we Put The Tree Out There. It's an autism thing for him, the routine and ritual of it. Doing this with him made me think of a recent Newsweek article I haven't been able to finish reading yet. I end up crying each time I try. I think of this stuff all the time, the million unanswerable questions that keep me up nights. Will he be OK? Will he be safe? What about when our insurance runs out? Will the doctors California has to provide him be good? Will they care? If not, will we be able to afford to pay for good ones? And what about the medical needs of his sisters?
Scary old world out there. It's all my fault, really - I keep meaning to win the lottery then just forget. Money won't fix everything, of course, but it would be nice not to have to worry about their medical needs or whether they would have a safe space in this world if something happened to me. There is also a truth that cannot be avoided: doors would open faster for my children if there were a lot of money behind them, doors which may open too slowly or not at all without it.
Oh well. I started the cards today, too. Designed the address labels (both to and from), picked and laid out the graphics, font and text, printed them up, stuck them on envelopes, set aside which cards I had to enclose letters with vs. the ones I add simple notes to (those are usually the people I am in such constant contact with they don't need any updates), picked out the ink color with which I would write the notes for the latter and picked out the paper upon which I will print the letters for the former, wrote the notes, stamped and sealed those envelopes, set aside the ones I needed to add letters to, thought about writing the basic part of the letter that goes to each addressee before I add those bits which need to be personalized for the individual addressee, decided it was too much work to get into tonight, set the whole thing aside and took the pic above.
And now, my dears, I am going to go watch Alien Resurrection as I fall off to sleep. Oh wait, no I'm not. I'm going to go make my son's bed for him, then I am going to go watch Alien Resurrection as I fall asleep.
Nighters.
