Life at the Beach

This weekend Ben flew a kite so high he ran out of string. He was so thrilled he could hardly contain himself and I worried he’d let it go in his excitement. But he held on and flew that kite exactly as long as he wanted to (reminding us repeatedly to look at how high it was). Normally Ben is far too anxious to be able to do such a thing, but at the beach, Ben is relaxed. We all are.

We have dear friends who own a lovely cabin at Pacific Beach and they are gracious enough to invite us to their peaceful get-away every year. For the past two years, we’ve gone with them to the beach for Mother’s Day weekend. Ben and Lucy love going to this special place more than almost anything in the world. And I can’t imagine a better Mother’s Day gift than seeing them truly happy.

Pacific Beach is a tiny town and there’s honestly not much to do there. Our friends often say of their cabin at the beach, “There’s nothing to do and plenty of time to do it.” Terry even remarked this weekend that she’s a little surprised the kids like it so much there. She thought most kids their age would be bored. And maybe she’s right, but the Heagler kids truly love it. They search endlessly on the beach for perfect sand dollars, giggle wildly while running away from the incoming tide, fly kites, watch old movies, read and play board games. And this year, a brand new treat – they walk to the gas-station store all by themselves and buy supplies we forgot to bring with us (and ring pops, sodas and cracker jacks too). They do what they want for as long as they want to. A weekend at the beach is decadent, lavish and extravagant in its simplicity. It is, quite plainly, a rare luxury.

Not known for his subtlety, Ben has begun lobbying for Terry to bequeath the beach house to him when she dies. He has it all planned out. He’ll live in the beach house and work at the coffee shop where he’ll earn $10 per day. He realizes with that income he’ll have to live simply, but at this moment in his life, he can’t imagine a better existence for himself. And I’m not entirely sure I disagree with him.

Maybe in the end “simple” is the greatest extravagance of all.

Some Things I Found

Recently a flash drive containing, “like three hours of work,” on a science fair project was lost in the Crandler house. We tore the house apart looking for it to no avail, but during the search, I did find the following in the depths of our sofa: 4 hair ties, a pink plastic bracelet, a fake quarter, an actual dime, binder clip, bouncy ball, pair of scissors, broken purple crayon, big gold plastic Mr. T-style neck chain, brown marker, 5 pencils, small Ziploc of googly eyes, a pair of purple Barbie pants, three Nerf darts, an old cell phone, Bridal Barbie’s wedding bouquet, a Bluetooth earset and a fake centipede. I was so proud of my haul from the sofa that I lined it all up on the coffee table and sought out someone to whom I could show it. Dylan happened by first and marvelled at my haul.  “Dude! You found all of this? Whoa.” Then Ben walked in.  He surveyed the scene, shrugged his shoulders, said, “I’ve been looking for that Mr. T chain,” with complete nonchalance, scooped it up off the table, put it on and walked out of the room without even looking at me. (Suppressing my giggle required  considerable effort.)


You can find a lot of things in the Crandler house (maybe not a flash drive with your science fair project on it, but lots of other stuff). Sometimes you might even find a strawberry stuck to the bottom of your foot when walking through the dining room. If a kid finds that strawberry first (as was the case this weekend), you can bet it will be kicked off that kid’s foot (after a loud, “Eeewww!”) to be found in the exact same way by another kid (with another, “Eewww!”)… and another after that. Why deprive others of the thrill of discovery? (That’s what Maggie’s dad said when I mentioned this phenomenon on Facebook.  Easy for him to say - he's not cleaning our dining room floor.) Sure, I could have picked it up myself, but each kid finding that strawberry stuck to the bottom of their foot kept me giggling for the better part of the morning. And what could be better than that?

After this weekend of seemingly endless discovery, I arrived at work Monday morning and dug around in my purse hoping to find a bank receipt from a deposit I had made on Thursday afternoon. I never found the bank receipt, but I did find a half-eaten, three-day-old donut wrapped in a paper napkin. I’m not sure which I found more amusing - the ridiculousness of that donut being there in the first place, or the fact that I was not particularly surprised to find a three-day-old, half-eaten donut in my purse. But either way, finding that donut made me smile that day and sometimes that’s the best you can hope for.

I sometimes run across a Dove Chocolate Promises wrapper that advises me to look for love in unexpected places. Lucy and I routinely mock the advice dispensed on that particular candy wrapper by thinking of the most outlandish places we can look for love. Under the bed? Glove compartment of the car? And while looking for love in those places may be absurd (and therefore hilarious), I routinely find my joy in the most peculiar places.

Like most parents, the place I most often find my joy these days is with my kids, but not just in the, “I love yous,” hugs and hand-made Mother’s Day cards. I find it there, to be sure, but I also find it in places far more unconventional - in the silly, strange, weird and wonderful, sometimes chaotic, often ridiculous details of our lives together. Just look where I found my joy last weekend: deep in the cushions of our sofa, stuck to the dining room floor and wrapped in a paper napkin in the bottom of my purse.

Maybe under the bed and in the glove compartment of the car are perfectly reasonable places to look for love after all.

More Eyeliner

I’ve always considered my looks to be average. I’ve never felt like the prettiest girl in the room, but I’ve never felt unattractive either. Until recently... when I saw myself in a different (and very unflattering, fluorescent light).


I’m working on a project for my job that will allow clients to access a video-library of the exercises we use in our strength training program. In the videos, another coach demonstrates each exercise and I do a voice-over explaining it. It's a very cool project and I'm excited to be a part of it.  The problem is that each video clip also has an introduction giving the name of the exercise, explaining why we do it and the benefits. Thirty seconds of nothing but me speaking directly into the camera. And in the mock-ups we’ve done so far, that’s 30 seconds of nothing but me – dressed in gym clothes, with un-styled hair, wearing very little make-up, in a harshly-lit gym. Shooting it made me horribly uncomfortable, but that was nothing compared to how I felt when I saw the result. I cried when I watched it the first time (and every time after that, truth be told). Now I try to leave the room anytime it’s being viewed for discussion or edits. My boss tried to talk to me about it and that made me cry too. When I watched that video, I felt ugly. And I wasn’t sure what to do with that, (but I knew deep-down that wearing a Sponge Bob piñata on my head wasn't a real option).  So I cried some more. And I hung my head, pushed my hair into my face, avoided looking people in the eye and generally felt uncomfortable.

Thursday night I was kid-free and would normally have come home from work, changed clothes and gone to my local bar for a beer. But this Thursday night I came home, turned on a TV show and contemplated staying in. It was when I looked in the bathroom mirror that it occurred to me what I needed. More eyeliner.

Some time ago, my friend, Katie replied on Facebook to a comment I had posted about my eyes being puffy from crying, with, “Use more eyeliner.” She almost immediately sent me a private message apologizing for being flip, but I told her no apology was necessary. She was absolutely right. And Thursday night I remembered Katie’s stellar advice. I got up off the couch, applied a different type of concealer, a slightly-brighter blush… and more eyeliner.

I sat next to a friend at the bar and Casey, the very sweet bartender, introduced me to two guys sitting a seat away from us (I’m pretty sure she was playing cupid for me and the guy sitting nearest me, but he only had eyes for Casey). Nevertheless, we all struck up a conversation and were having a great time. And I almost forgot about feeling ugly, but at least a little of that uncomfortable feeling still hovered around the edges.

Then I heard Matt (the guy sitting nearest me with the eyes for Casey) tell his friend, Mike, that he admired Mike’s “swagger.” Mike was laughing and denying he had any such thing and I began to laugh a little at their exchange. When Matt turned to me, I looked him in the eye, smiled and made a smart-ass remark about having his swagger-meter checked. That’s when Matt looked at me and said, “You have swagger.” I’m sure my face registered surprise.  My mouth was still forming the word, “Seriously?” when the friend with whom I was sitting said under his breath, “Dude, you have no idea.” So I swung my head around to him as the word exited my mouth...“Seriously?” He looked me in the eye, paused long enough to make me wonder what on earth was going to come out of his mouth next, but said only, “Pfft,” and returned to his beer.

Maybe eyeliner was all I needed. Or maybe it was the change of attitude that went along with it. Maybe all I needed was a little more sass… a little more Lori… to stop feeling ugly. To find my swagger. This week I plan to approach local businesses about participating in point of sale fundraising in support of Walk Now for Autism Speaks. I’ll be sure to wear my eyeliner – and work my swagger. They’ll be powerless to resist me.

And the video for work? That’s still going to be tough, I’m afraid. But maybe if I can muster the courage to watch the mock-up more closely, I’ll come up with some ideas to help me feel better about it (other than wearing the Sponge Bob piñata on my head). With a little sass, a little swagger (and a lot more eyeliner), anything’s possible.

Shining a Light on Autism

This weekend I replaced the lightbulbs in my outdoor light fixtures with blue bulbs in recognition of World Autism Awareness Day. This weekend I shined a light on autism and encouraged others to do the same. A small gesture for each of us, but combined with thousands of others all over the world, the effect of that gesture was anything but small.


Autism has been a part of my life since my son, Ben, was diagnosed when he was 2 1/2.  I believe autism is just a part of who Ben is.  And while I would do anything in my power to help him manage his autism, I don’t think I would change it – I really don’t. It's my goal to give him the tools to do whatever he wants to do in life. It's my goal to make things less hard for him. And it's most certainly my goal for him to experience life, relationships, joy and love as fully as his neuro-typical counterparts. But do I want him to stop making endless playlists? No. Do I want him to stop alphabetizing my CDs? Good lord, no. Do I wish he didn't remember every joke he’s ever heard and bust them out with less-than-stellar comedic timing at the oddest moments? Not really. Do I wish he wouldn’t memorize the order of every song on every Now! CD ever made, quote completely out of context from a movie and try to pass it off as conversation or tirelessly arrange and rearrange Lego Guys in his bedroom? No – I really don’t. It's all part of the package that is Ben Heagler - part of his truly wonderful "Ben-ness."

And while I wouldn't want to change my Ben, I do dream of a more tolerant world for him.  During Autism Awareness month, and always, I dream of a world where kids like Ben - and kids with differences of all types - are embraced and bullying them is unthinkable. A world where the strengths of the quirky kid are celebrated like those of the star athlete. When I sometimes post "I believe intolerance is intolerable" as a Facebook status, I am speaking globally about race relations, religious freedoms and genocide, but I am also speaking very personally about my own quirky kid and thousands of others like him. Kids who "flap" when they're excited or "scootch" on the floor like an inchworm to calm themselves, or who sit at a computer for hours on end typing a 610-song playlist entitled ZZ Top (which inexplicably contains not even one ZZ Top song).

When Ben, Lucy and I gave away blue lightbulbs to our friends last week, Ben thanked them for participating in Light It Up Blue for Autism Awareness. And I know he’d want me to express our thanks here as well. The Heaglers thank those of you who shined a light on autism by putting a blue bulb in your outdoor fixture this weekend. We thank those of you who donate to autism causes and who read this blog to learn more about life in a family living with autism.

And I, personally, thank those who offer an understanding heart, kind word or encouraging smile. Thank you for sharing a cup of coffee, glass of wine (or the occasional shot of tequila) with me. For laughing and crying with me. And for offering a hug… to me and thousands of other parents just like me. All of us doing our best every day to give our kids the tools they need to live the lives they want while preserving that which makes them "them."  Doing our best to raise our kids with grace, dignity and the respect they deserve.

Law of Attraction...?

The kids were at their dad’s this weekend so I had some time to myself. Saturday afternoon I was wandering aimlessly through the sale racks at a department store when an idea struck me. Maybe if I behaved as though I had an impending hot date, the opportunity for a hot date would actually present itself to me.

To be clear, it’s not as if I sit around reading The Secret every day while obsessing over a Vision Board on my bedroom wall, but I am willing to accept the possibility that there may be something to this Law of Attraction business. Positive thinking brings about positive results - seems reasonable to me.

So, think about a hot date to bring about a hot date. It all seemed so clear standing there amid the sale racks, it was practically an epiphany. And what do I do when I have a hot date? Buy cute underwear, obviously. Don’t you? So I headed up the escalator to the lingerie department to do just that. But the Universe had other plans for me that day.

As I came around the corner from housewares, I ran smack into my friend, Craig, loitering in the aisle between shoes and lingerie, waiting patiently while his wife and daughter shopped for shoes. As I talked to Craig, both his wife and daughter came out from among the shoe racks to say hi and show me what they were trying on. When Craig asked what I was doing there I turned bright red, mumbled something about looking for the restroom and bolted back towards the escalator.

Once safely on my way out of the store, I burst into tears feeling incredibly foolish for even considering shopping for cute underwear. I mean honestly – what was I thinking? Who was going to see them anyway? Stupid Law of Attraction mumbo-jumbo. Hmph.

Later that night, I sat at my neighborhood haunt in my perfectly plain, boring (yet comfortable) underwear and talked to an incredibly handsome stranger who had sent me a drink after I smiled at him from across the bar. He was visiting from out of town and I knew there was no future in it, but for a fleeting moment I thought about the cute underwear I might have been wearing had I just told the Universe to bite me and forged ahead with my plans despite the embarrassment of running into a male friend in the lingerie department. And part of me was lamenting the boring underwear I was wearing. But then the handsome stranger (who seemed very charming right up until this point) leaned close to be heard over the band and in a voice as smooth as silk said, “I bet you’re pretty disappointed that I don’t live in Seattle, aren’t you?”

Um... seriously?

I smiled sweetly, touched his heavily-muscled arm, leaned close and said, “Not as disappointed as you might think.”

Thanks, Universe. Once again, you were right.  You saved me $20 or so and I didn’t need cute underwear anyway... at least not that night.  And who knows?  Maybe I'll try this underwear-buying exercise again in a couple of weeks.  Hopefully Craig and his family won't need any more shoes just yet.

Can't Touch This

This weekend, Lucy had two different friends over within two days, eliciting from Ben the question every parent with a kid on the autism spectrum dreads: “How come I never have a friend over?” I stayed calm. I kept it casual. Easy-breezy. “Huh. That’s a good question, Ben. Why don’t you give me the names of four friends you might like to have over and I’ll see what I can do.” Ben promptly produced a list of names of four boys, all of whom have unlisted telephone numbers and none of whose parents speak English. I like a challenge as much as the next girl, but come on! Seriously?

So I called the first kid I could think of with a published telephone number and english-speaking parents. Ben sat next to Carter the night before at the school talent show. It wasn’t much to go on and I had no expectation of finding this kid at home, but a girl’s got to try. So I left a message and that done, took a minute to consider my options. I decided to go with: (a) pretending I was completely confident Carter would call back any minute, (b) acting as if nothing could possibly go wrong, and (c) distracting to beat the band. I took a deep breath, turned and smiled at Ben and said, “Hey Ben, are you hungry?” fully intending to feed him anything he asked for.

He looked at me incredulously and said, “Mom! Do not interrupt your son when he’s singing MC Hammer.” Apparently with all my mental gymnastics, I had missed the fact that Ben had been dropping some Hammer Time on me. I stared at him blankly, a little off my Conversations-With-Ben-Game (you really have to be on your toes). Ben shrugged, walked past me into the kitchen and said, “It’s in all the parenting books.”

While he fixed his lunch, he announced each move in a booming sports-announcer voice. “And now he gets a knife, spreads the jelly on the bread and puts the knife in the sink, ladies and gentlemen!” (And then quietly, under his breath, “Puts the knife in the sink, ladies and gentlemen.”) When he was done announcing every last detail of his lunch preparation, he stood in the doorway of the kitchen, saluted me and sat down to eat. So I took my own lunch to the table and sat down next to him.

While we ate, Ben explained to me that 40% of human excrement is composed of living organisms and advised checking my own excrement closely if I doubted his claim. I nodded thoughtfully and wondered aloud if I would need a microscope for that. He then went on to tell me why I should never drink the water from an airplane bathroom sink. I assured him I would never consider such a thing even without his stern warning, but he still launched into a lengthy explanation of the Boeing Corporation’s water filtration system design anyway. I think my eyes glazed over a bit, but I don’t think Ben noticed.

When he ran out of steam on the topic of water filtration and human excrement, I smiled at him conspiratorially and asked if he wanted whipped cream on his Thin Mints. He raised his eyebrows suspiciously and said, “Seriously?” Yep – seriously. And how about a couple more while we’re at it? And then, while Ben was marveling at the taste sensation of canned whipped cream atop the chocolately-minty goodness of a Girl Scout cookie, I nudged him with my shoulder and said, “Want to play What Tastes Terrible With Mustard?” He smiled his most devious smile and said, “Thin Mints and mustard.” I scrunched up my face, said, “Eewww!” and countered with, “Mustard on butterscotch pudding.” Ben laughed a truly infectious belly laugh and the game was on.

Carter never did call back and eventually Ben realized I was intentionally distracting him from that fact. And even though his good mood subsided with that realization, I’m pretty sure I sensed appreciation from my sweet boy for the laughs and the fun we had shared that afternoon while Lucy played downstairs with a “real friend.”

I love me a Ben Play Date. Carter has no idea what he’s missing.

Let's Be Friends

So here’s the thing: I’m lonely. There. I said it. Admitting to being lonely is a bit of a no-no in polite society these days. Admitting to being lonely will earn you all sorts of reminders about how lucky you are to have great kids and wonderful friends. It will earn you advice that, while given with the very best of intentions, still feels oddly admonishing, like, "When you stop looking, it will happen."

I am clearly not alone.  I understand that. I’m surrounded by people. My beautiful children, wonderful friends, trusted family - I have people coming out of my ears and I love and appreciate them, each and every one. I do. But I miss having A Person. I miss it on a cellular level. I want to look for A Person. Seems like a logical thing to do, right? But truth be told, I haven’t actively “looked” in years (maybe it’s that, “When you stop looking…” admonishment ringing in my ears).  But all this not looking has gotten me nowhere.

So occasionally I do open one eye (but just the one) and peer suspiciously out of the corner of it. Sometimes I even notice someone skulking around out there in my periphery, but I never talk to him. Burned too many times maybe. Self-conscious, out of practice…a little weary.

But the other night, the strangest thing happened. As I was peering suspiciously out of the corner of my eye (just the one), a perfectly lovely man walked right up, looked directly in both my eyes and talked to me. He told me I was pretty. And asked for my phone number. I was so surprised by his straight-forward approach – no skulking, no sidling, no feigning disinterest – I completely forgot about being suspicious. It was the equivalent of a kindergartener asking a kid who is a complete stranger if they want to be friends on the first day of school. And you know what? I do want to be his friend – and who knows where that might lead?

Kindergarteners know how to make friends. But it gets twisted and turned around far too soon. By second grade you can already see some mean-girl drama on the playground. Kids might jockey for position among their friends, fail to speak their heart for fear of rejection or punch a girl (or boy) in the arm instead of saying, “I like you.” Sadly, all the same things grown-ups do.

I think kindergarteners have it right, though. So here goes.  Hi - I'm Lori.  Do you want to be friends?