The problem is that when you’ve been with someone for 18 years (our relationship is officially an adult!) their pain becomes your pain; it’s like you’re stressed-out by proxy, but in our case my husband is feeling queasy and I am eating all the guacamole.

I have some experience with this anxiety stuff. Just ask my fingernails, my waistline, and my bar bill. What I don’t have experience with is someone I love going through it. I talk to strangers all day long for a living, but I have no idea what to say to my soul-mate other than, “Pass the chips.”

What I cling to is knowing that the most horrible, poop-inducing, anxiety-ridden moments of my life resulted in something great. Two premature births, all of my son’s surgeries, and speaking at a keynote in front of roughly 4,000 people stand out in my mind, but they were all necessary and wonderful in the grand scheme of things.

Shaking Like a Leaf at the Voices of the Year Community Keynote, BlogHer ’11

These events have taught me one very important lesson; good stuff happens to those who don’t die of dehydration from their nervous poops. So, see? I am not glib. I put forethought into donning my rose-colored glasses.

Even if my husband wants nothing more than to rip them off my face and throw them into the street.

Recently, we were asked to bring a patriotic dessert to a pot-luck so I turned to Pinterest for some inspiration. Part of my job is to pin items to the BlogHer Loves Holidays board and I knew there were some great ideas involving red, white and blue goodies. In particular, I wanted to make these rice cereal treats.

They didn’t turn out as pretty as the picture, but it’s me; this wasn’t a surprise. It wasn’t until we got to the pot-luck where I saw these adorably sprinkled cupcakes…

 …and this flag-waving dessert…

 …that I realized I had gone overboard on the dye and created the ugliest dish on the table. They weren’t even blue. They were green and very holiday-buffet looking. This is now my M.O. as I once created, what my friends refer to as, “Holiday S’mores” on a camping trip when I accidentally packed cinnamon graham crackers.

I used a 3-section foam plate as a tray, so as not to intimidate anyone.

At this most recent event, people were nudging me as I took these pictures to point out how bad the treats looked. In their defense, they didn’t know they were talking to the chef.

Next up: I put a Christmas spin on strawberry shortcake.

That doesn’t seem very long, until you’re actually sitting there. It’s long. Last week, I applied all of my makeup while sitting at that light. I even curled my eyelashes. Don’t judge me.

If a text is urgent I will reply using Siri (yes Mom, texts can be urgent when you work on Twitter and you have a tweet about quilting about to go up in the middle of a national disaster…and, this is not to say that quilting isn’t important, because it is…to quilters).

Sometimes, though, Siri doesn’t cooperate. In fact, she’s taken to insulting me.

So I told my daughter to snap a picture of the screen so I could tattle on my iPhone like any adult would do, then I tried again.

Rude.

Clearly, Siri has selective hearing which makes her a lot like my children. And, my dog. I may as well ask her to clean her room, or unload the dishwasher, or stop rolling in dead animals.

But I will not cave. I will not text while driving even though I kind of want to just to show Siri that I CAN LIVE WITHOUT HER and her lack of help.

At least the quilters are happy.

Do you remember in The Sixth Sense when Haley Joel Osmet’s mom walks out of the kitchen, then returns a moment later to find all of the cabinets and drawers open? That’s what it sounded like this morning when my daughter turned back to her sandwich and found a water bottle stuck firmly into the middle of the bread.

My son just turned 11, and he is smart, so you’d think he would know better, but let’s keep in mind that this is the child who has secretly been taking pictures of people’s double-chins with my phone. I go to make a phone call and instead find 64 photos of fat necks; my own included. You don’t even want to see the search history on our iPad.

Sometimes his behavior is downright bizarre, so that’s why it was such a relief when my husband and I sat in a classroom at, what we hope will be, our son’s new school. Though I will admit, before the class started we were concerned the day would be filled with  nothing but chaos.

There was the student with personal space issues (BEEN THERE) and the other one who ran around the room only to stop and pet my husband’s jacket (BEEN THERE, TOO), one child was sleeping, and one child was rolling around in his teacher’s chair. My husband and I looked at each other with that same what are we going to do now look that we’ve given each other many times before.

But, then the class started. Though the behaviors didn’t come to a complete halt, these kids were learning and they were learning stuff that my husband and I were clueless about. No offense to Canadian geography, or anything. I couldn’t believe the difficulty of the work and I couldn’t believe how smart these kids were.

The teacher, who knew exactly what to do to get through to each individual child, had them focused, challenging themselves, taking a quiz without audible groaning, and speaking clearly as they read aloud. It was amazing to watch and I was flat-out honored for the opportunity. I wish everyone could do it. Ignorance is bliss, after all, but knowledge is power.

At one point a student raised her hand and started a sentence to her teacher by saying, “No offense, but maybe you should have…” Yeah, that whole “no-offense” thing? BEEN THERE, TOO. My son used to start most of his sentences with, “I’m sorry to say this, but…”

That’s when my husband and I looked at each other and silently thought, these are our people. And that’s a place where we’ve never really been before.

I can’t wait to see where we go next.

Yeah, me too.

This lecture usually includes my opinion that if you don’t say no the first time, your brain may not be able to say no the second time; addiction takes over and makes the decision for you.

I tell them that when someone approaches them and says, “It’s great! You’re going to love it! Come on, everyone is doing it!” to politely decline and walk away from the situation. Don’t start, because you don’t know if you can stop.

I wish I had taken my own advice.

Damn you, Candy Crush! Damn you!

My 10 year old son has PDD-NOS. This stands for Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Not Otherwise Specified, which can also be called sub-threshold autism, or autism spectrum disorder, or GOOD HEAVENS WHAT IS GOING ON WITH OUR CHILD RIGHT NOW? We’ve called it all of those things at one time or another.

The fact is, no matter what you call it, it’s a disability. My son’s brain does not function like a typical child’s brain. He does not understand social cues, he has a hard time understanding figurative language, he exhibits repetitive behaviors, and he exhibits repetitive behaviors. See what I did there? He can also become easily frustrated. Though, I could say the same about my 14 year old daughter. *crosses arms* *rolls eyes*

For the past seven years we have been trying to mainstream this very non-mainstream child. We felt that our small school, with a focus on Christian values was just the right place for him to get not only an education, but also the love and support of our church family. But, I don’t think we can try to force this square peg into a round hole any longer.

We can not snap our fingers and have him suddenly be free of his issues. We can neither employ the same techniques used with other kids, nor expect the same results. He is a unique individual and he needs a unique plan and the comfort of being in a place where he, and his intentions, are not misunderstood.

It is not an easy decision to remove your child from the school where he’s spent almost half his life. It’s hard to turn away from the families and teachers who have supported us, but I want him to be in a place where he doesn’t stand out or get called out. For once, I want him to be the typical kid.

So, if you need me, I’ll be doing some research and lots of paperwork. I think we have a move to make.

Nintendo not only sent me a Wii U and a couple of games, but they also sent Chris and Brian, who were able to explain this amazing new game system to a room full of eager party-goers in about 15 minutes flat. Also, they brought pizza. I kind of wanted to keep them.

Do you know how hard it is to make a teenage girl laugh? How about THREE teenage girls? The Wii U has powers, y’all. No joke.

Like the power to make me contort my face. This is me, losing the Luigi’s Ghost Mansion game. My son is just drinking that juice box like he DOESN’T EVEN CARE that I was just attacked. Rude.

What I love about Wii U is that the fun spans the ages. After three generations raced and chased, we all sang and danced to Justin Bieber’s, “Baby”…

…The B-52s, “Love Shack”…

…and Frank Sinatra’s, “New York, New York.”

Then we had prizes! Everybody loves prizes. See?

Family game night has taken on a whole new meaning for us. Honestly, we haven’t even tried to engage our kids with a  board game lately, mostly because they call them “bored” games. The tech-savvy teens and tweens at this party enjoyed the Wii U’s challenges, the team-elements, and the superb graphics, while the parents enjoyed having the kids around on a Friday night.

We connected, we laughed, WE HAD SO MUCH FUN. I’m not kidding when I say that I would do this every weekend if we could.

For now, I am practicing my vocals and scaring the dog out of the room in the process. I’m working on my dance moves and improving my Mario chasing skills. There will be no more face-contorting for me!

But first I have to stop watching Breaking Bad on Netflix, because that’s also something for which I use the Wii U and I won’t even get into how I can watch shows AND tweet with it at the same time, or purchase On Demand movies, or have voice and video chats with friends. Have mercy. I haven’t even told my husband about the sports features because I’ll never get my hands on the game-pad again!

I want to offer a huge thanks to Nintendo for making our party a success! The Wii U provided hours of entertainment and a great time was had by all. We can’t wait for next time!

Last night I went to a gala fundraiser for a local special needs school and I wore something sparkly. Do you know what doesn’t go with sparkly? Pony-tails. Actually, since Pinterest came along and made hair-dos the next DIY craze, I don’t feel comfortable going anywhere with a rubberband in my hair.

So, once again, I turned to a tutorial. Some people use online tutorials to create their own wine racks from discarded wood pallets; I take bobby-pins and make a bun. Here’s the video I used:

And, here’s how mine turned out. This was only the first try, so I’m pretty happy with it. It was hard to pin the left side of my hair, but with a little practice I think I could do a better job. Clearly, the skill I really need to work on is taking a photo of the back of my head in a mirror.

Other bloggers are choosing their favorite hairstyle tutorial videos and asking for your opinions on which you love most. Each week, BlogHer is giving away prizes to 3 lucky winners: one grand prize viewer will receive a $250 Visa gift card and two more folks will each receive a $100 Visa gift card! Visit the Prizes and Promotions page on BlogHer.com for more info!

Hair Sweepstakes Official Rules.

There is the parent who offered to get a group of people together to take my son on the field trip he wasn’t allowed to attend, and who also wanted to throw in a Reds game. Sharks, beer, and peanuts? Count me in!

There are my in-laws who provided me much-needed respite. I even took a bubble bath.

There are dozens of people who emailed, texted, hugged and listened. There are so many friends praying and hoping for us right now. Thank you.

I haven’t felt this good about humanity since the infamous meat-wagon, freezer incident of 2009.

And, maybe that’s what this is all about. Maybe every now and then we need to be reminded that there is more good than bad; that for every awful thing you read or experience, there are hundreds of good deeds going unnoticed or unmentioned.

If I’m going to share the bad, then you’ll have to bear with me as I share the good, too. That spa gift card, though? I’m keeping that all to myself.