I Won't Hesitate No More

Yes, I realize that is very poor grammar, but it's from one of my current favorite songs: "I'm Yours" by Jason Mraz. It's fun. Anyway, I have been hesitating with posting anything new for a while, because I was so busy last week. Here's the scoop. As some of you may know, I visit teach a lady in my ward (I'll call her Sister Y) who has Asperger's Syndrome (a type of autism: read more about it here). She is very intelligent, but has some social issues. WebMD says this about Autism: "The word “autism,” which has been in use for about 100 years, comes from the Greek word “autos,” meaning “self.” The term describes conditions in which a person is removed from social interaction -- hence, an isolated self." People with autism, even those who are high-functioning like Sister Y, have difficulties with empathy. She can't really see any point of view but her own. Sister Y is extremely sensitive--to noise, light, distractions, etc. Sundays are very difficult for her because she wants to be fed spiritually, but with screaming babies and people around her talking . . . I can't imagine not being able to tune all of that out. She can't. She knows she's different, and because of that, she feels rejected. It's not that people tell her outright that she doesn't belong; it's how she interprets things. When people don't say hello or thank you or things like that, she feels rejected. She craves attention and positive reinforcement, but she's so socially isolated that she doesn't get much. That's where we come in. Last Sunday was her birthday. My partner and I are both in the Primary, so if we don't see her in Sacrament Meeting on Sundays, we generally don't see her at all. We visited her the week before (our visits generally last about 2 hours), and she told us it was her birthday. I don't know what she was expecting, but she wanted it to be special. That was when the idea of crocheting a blanket for her came to me. So last week I crocheted my brains out--I don't think I went to bed before 2 a.m. any day that whole week! I pulled out some old yarn and started going. It was coming along pretty well, until I realized my last skein of yarn was falling apart and wouldn't be enough to finish it. So we tried to hunt for more yarn of the same color . . . yeah right. If Red Heart even makes it anymore, I wasn't going to find any on Saturday night. So I got some multi-colored yarn and decided to make a scarf. I started it about 9pm on Saturday night, and I just needed to finish it. I did . . . at about 6 a.m. on Sunday morning. Not very smart, I know. Anyway, I slept through Sacrament meeting. Benji was not feeling well, so Allen stayed home with him and I went to Primary. My partner gave me a book to give to Sister Y (she was sick that day, too). I took it home and wrapped it all and made her a little cake and took it over to her. I had called a few people the day before to ask them to wish her a happy birthday in case we didn't see her (which neither of us did). When I brought her gifts over, she was so happy! She said that several people came up to her that day, and she was very grateful for her gifts. I'm glad I could do something nice for her. Sunday was pretty rough, considering I was running on 2 hours of sleep. We went to Rachael's house to make pizza, then we went to hear Dave play prelude for a Jon Schmidt fireside. Dave was great, and the fireside was good, but I was just trashed. We all went to bed early. Monday, Allen left for work as usual at 4 a.m. I had to be to work at 11. I didn't feel good that morning, and I debated on calling in sick. I took some tylenol allergy sinus to see if it would help. It didn't. Work was okay; I put my name on the out-early list, hoping to get out sooner than later. I got a text from Lexy saying that Benji had puked all over the place for her. Bow-wow! Thankfully, I did get to leave around 6 p.m. I felt sick the whole way home--I thought I might have to pull over and throw up. I made it home, and when I came in, Benji was crying. Allen said the baby had just puked and he was still traumatized from the shower. Just then, I ran to the bathroom and barfed in the sink. Everything I had eaten in the last 24 hours came up--serious spewage. I could see it coming out of my mouth like in a cartoon. I didn't even have time to hold my hair back, so it got in my hair and all over the sink. I took a shower while Allen took the plunger to the sink. He said he had to dump some Pine-Sol in it so he didn't follow suit! When I got out, I put Benji to bed and went to brush my teeth. Then, I heard a weird gurgling from the toilet. I called Allen in to check it out, and we saw bubbles starting to fill up the bowl. They kept coming up and started overflowing. Bubbles. Allen ran upstairs and knocked on the door; Mr. X was giving their kid a bath, and apparently she had dumped a whole bottle of shampoo down the drain. Bubbles. I guess it could have been worse. So that's what has happened in my world in the past few days. Lots of crocheting, lots of puke. I hope you had a better weekend than me!