Aspergers or Hamburgers

I guess sometimes I get distracted with the many things that fill my day. Normal stuff... the day to day rigors of parenting, books, writing, school... And you forget to pay attention to the little things. To take out a moment and let the tears make salty tracks down your cheeks as your soul opens up enough to let the worries and fears of being a parent come to the surface.

The tv show Parenthood has a little boy with Asperger's on it. It is a really good representation of what life with a kid on the spectrum is like. He wrings his little hands when he is frustrated, struggles with social interactions and shines with that special little light that so many of these kids have. Every time I watch that show, I am driven to tears.

I have said before that having Princess has been a great struggle and sometimes a practice in patience-- patience with myself when I want to fix things and can't. Patience with her when she does things that aren't 'normal' and patience with others who don't treat her as I feel she deserves.

Today I spoke with one of her teachers and she said Princess was reading and comprehending on a 9th grade level. I literally broke down on the phone and cried as the teacher told me this.

When Princess tried kindergarten the first time through, her teacher was an ass. She literally told me in a conference that my daughter couldn't learn. I wrote a letter to the principal in response to this. I told him that Helen Keller could learn and she was deaf and blind, don't you dare tell me that my daughter, with all of her faculties in tact, couldn't learn.

But she struggled.

Learning to read took YEARS. Literally, I had read the flashcards out loud so many times that my youngest (no more than 3 or 4 at the time) would overhear us. So when I held up the A card and asked Princess what it was, he would reply, from across the room, "A is for Apple. A-p-p-l-e." I would look at her and wonder how the baby could get it and she couldn't. But it was all an uphill battle for her.

To hear from a teacher that she was now ABOVE grade level... I couldn't help it. I cried. It was so good to hear that all the time, all the repeating over and over... It worked. She had done it.

I have said before, that looking at your baby... Lying in that hospital bed and counting the pearly pink toes and seeing such a beautiful creature (she was born looking like she had been dipped in water before being handed to me... Not a speck of blood or ick on her. So perfect and lovely.) and knowing your child is whole and healthy...

To finding out years later that something inside her is just a little off. Something that you can't put a bandaid on or kiss to make better... It kills daily. I can't make the world be nice to her. I can't make it all come easy to her. Learning will always be a struggle for her and sometimes, when I learn things quickly, I feel guilty. Why was I given the ability to grasp concepts so easily and she left to struggle with every nugget of information? It isn't fair!! I would give it to her, if I could.

And late at night, when I am worrying the loudest, that is when I have found that I sometimes yell at God. I beg any higher power that might be listening to make it better... to make it easier... to tell me how to fix things and make the world okay for her.

But no one answers. Not that I can hear.

Sometimes this makes me feel very alone. Like no one would understand how much it makes your heart hurt to not be able to make the world a safe and lovely place for someone you love so much.

And there is that stupid tv show. With that beautiful little boy... and his struggles.

And I cry. Because I am not alone. Other parents are worrying the same fears. Other parents are struggling to do the right thing, make the right choices, not mess up too badly with the terribly wonderful responsibility that comes with these kids.

They see the world in a way that we can't. And if we let them, they give us little glimpses into their view. But the world is afraid of change and different. So sometimes people hurt their feelings for being special. Sometimes I say things and bite my tongue the minute the words come out but you can't take back the little things you say. You can't protect them from everyone all the time...

So the worry is there.
Right alongside the beauty.

Anyway, the point of all this was that it is good that there is a show like this. A program that says, "I get it," in a way that no amount of sympathetic nods can. I like knowing that she (and I) are not alone. That probably it will all work out okay, and if not okay, then exactly as it was meant to.

Today I watched an episode where the little boy was all alone and people called him a freak. I have seen this happen to my kid. But in the end, the people that cared about him were by his side. And she has been lucky enough to have a best friend that has been there since she was in 1st grade... who accepts her and her Princess-isms and doesn't judge her. Someone who doesn't give a rats ass if she has Aspergers or hamburgers... Who loves her for who she is, not the label that was stuck to her.

In the end, that is the most that anyone can hope for. Someone who loves you, despite what may or may not be true about you, no matter what. Someone willing to call bullshit if the moment warrants and to tell you to knock it off when you are being too weird.

Love comes in many forms. The best one I have found is friend.

Contest!!!

I woke up to find that Clothing Optional had climbed back to #4 for romance and hot shorts on my publishers bestsellers list. I also found out that some awesome reader from Virginia (the state, not me) had left this review on Amazon.com :

Clothing Optional is a short, hot read that pushes the boundaries of love. Virginia Nelson, best known for her Odd Stuff series, takes a break from the paranormal to share a story about three characters, who start as friends and end up lovers on a getaway weekend at a clothing optional resort.

Ms. Nelson p...resents this tale in such a way that it's believable for all three characters to fall in love with each other. Not only is it believable but she has her readers hoping for that perfect happy ending. Do they get it? Well, you'll have to read the story!

For a scintillating read, check out Clothing Optional!

So to celebrate all the love (since the book has been out quite some time, I am a happy author to wake up to this...) I figured it was time for a giveaway!!!

But I don't want to just love on Clothing Optional... I will let the winner have their choice of my backtitles (Odd Stuff, Siren's Song, or Clothing Optional) because I am just swell like that.

All you have to do to win your free choice is either message me on Facebook or comment below.

Feel free to share the contest with your friends. Best of luck!!!

On Scientific Discoveries and Edits

As some of you may know, my eldest and youngest are going to an online charter school. This means I get a front row seat to their educational escapades. Although this may not sound like the most amusing of ventures, I find them a daily dose of fresh and fun comments. For instance, today Princess was again working on her scientific discoveries time line.

Princess: I can't believe that discovering Uranus is a scientific discovery.
Me: Why not? I mean, it was important.
Princess: You don't get it, Mom. I just wrote : Discovered Uranus.
Me: Uh huh.
Princess: Your anus?! Your anus?! Someone discovered Your Anus.
Me: Just finish the timeline.

My son is working on a narrative essay about state parks and what kind of things they can teach us. He is focusing on our camping trips to Mosquito Lakes and things like owl poop.

Ash: I am revising my narrative essay. Is that like your edits?
Me: Kind of, yeah.
Ash: Except you get to cheat. They TELL you what you did wrong. Is there such a thing as an elementary school editor? And how do I find one? Maybe google?
Me: Your editor is you. You have to find what you did wrong.
Ash: Well, you writers are kind of cheaters, then, aren't you?
Me: *scowl*

Kids. Meh.

Death and Pain and other inevitables

My uncle, Virgil Parnell, passed away this week. There is nothing like a funeral to get you thinking about mortality.

When I was a kid, JuJu (his nickname) was a larger than life figure, probably because my mom had grown up looking up to him and passed a bit of that hero worship down to us girls. When she was a kid, he was off in the Korean War, being a soldier. She told us a bit of her childhood and he would visit, riding on an Indian motorcycle or driving some new car and it always impressed her, a simple girl growing up in the mountains of Pennsylvania.

I remember one of his visits when he took me shopping and bought me this disembodied head (a Barbie kind of thing with hair I could style and pretend make-up....) and some plastic money.

Later, he came and picked up our little family and took us on the longest car ride I had ever been on at the time. He had this shiny brown and tan Bronco and I had never even been in a truck. He got us our first McDonald's and took us to his home by Lake Erie. I remember being awed by the Lake. It seemed to be the biggest thing in the world...

Uncle JuJu played the hero quite a bit for my childhood. He came one Christmas and mom had only gotten me this big blue coat while my sister got toys. Uncle JuJu came back and gave me a radio with a tape deck. I thought that was so cool (I still have the antiquated thing in my attic...) and later in life he paid for my drivers ed classes. I remember sitting on his lap in his recliner and watching movies and feeling so safe... He was big and strong and seemed at the time to be some scary constant that was larger than life.

Like I said, nothing like a funeral to have you consider mortality.

In my upcoming release, later this month, Sleeping Garden, written under my pseudonym Virginia Ashley, the characters have to deal with death and mortality. It is a YA Paranormal that starts out with the main characters mother passing away suddenly after being very healthy. She is left to try to go on without her mother there... something she never imagined. Dealing with grief is something that everyone deals with in their own way and Olivia's way is probably neither better nor worse than anyone's in those circumstances.

On the reverse side of things, Colin, one of the lead guys in Olivia's life, has been sick his whole life and dealt daily with the knowledge that he will probably not live to see adulthood. This has made him a bit of a morbid character and, when confronted with Olivia and her new grief, he is forced to reevaluate how his perspective of things are hampering each day he is gifted with.

Dealing with death and the knowledge that all life ends isn't easy for even adults. When coping with these topics as a kid, it is even harder since most of the time they don't have the words to even express what they are going through. Somehow, losing someone, brings us back to memories, faded and stuffed into dusty boxes in the backs of our minds, and makes us look at who they were and who we may have wished they could have been.

Probably editing a book about death while mourning was bound to make me think about it more than I would have otherwise but in a way, it also helped me work through what I was feeling on the topic.

Rest in Peace, Uncle JuJu. Semper Fi. Once a Marine, Always a Marine.

In My Mailbox

Since it was my birthday this past week, I have gotten lots of cool stuff. But my mailbox has been busy this week, too, so I thought I would show off some of the cool book stuff and author swag that has come my way. First off, I won this copy of A Beautiful Dark by Jocelyn Davies from Goodreads. Here is the back cover
Basically, it is a couple of angel boys and one not-so-ordinary girl. Looks good. Trying to get it read this weekend so I can toss up a review. You can pick up your copy here or by clicking on the cover art.

Next, I won a contest held by Jackson Pearce to celebrate the release of Sweetly which got me this sucker, the UK cover version of Sisters Red (signed!) and a fail invite. I was super excited about this one as the kids and I are huge Jackson Pearce fans. You can pick up your copy of Sweetly here or by clicking on the pictures.
For those of you who didn't read Sisters Red (the companion novel to Sweetly), Jackson has created some truly scary monsters and has a lovely voice to her writing. Sweetly is a modern retelling of Hanzel and Gretel. But better and just...wow. I haven't quite finished it yet but it has been great so far.

And lastly, I went to the beautiful wedding of Leslie and Shawn Tromler and had the most excellent strawberry wine I have ever had. It was from a local winery called Virant Family Winery and you can find their website here. It literally tastes like a liquid strawberry shortcake. Good stuff. I know, it wasn't in my mailbox but it was too good not to mention.

The guy with the drunken elk

I am taking a physics class called Seven Ideas that Shook the Universe. Most of what we are talking about is pretty familiar to me since I am a dork and read things like The Universe in a Nutshell and A Brief History of Time for fun.

However, when the professor brought up Tycho Brahe he really caught my attention. It was a short sentence, in passing, about Tycho having a silver nose because his was shot off in a duel.

A guy with a silver nose?

Who gets a prosthetic nose? Tycho. That's who. And it was enough to send me clicking on the internet to find out more. I must research this man further.

What I have learned so far:

1. Born a twin, his brother died as an infant. However, his parents had promised to give him to his uncle. It doesn't say why other than 'to become a scholar.' When they didn't follow through and give away their son, he came and took him. Kidnapped would probably be an okay term to throw around here. But they never tried to get him back.

2. Tycho did get into a fight at a party and it resulted in a duel in which his nose got shot off. He, from then on, wore a prosthetic nose held on with 'paste' (read: he glued that shit to his FACE). However, green stains around his skull-when he was brought up for modern curiosity-suggest that he wore a copper one around the house and such. It was lighter and more comfy. Picture this for a moment : Guy with green stains and a silver and gold nose. He had to get laid A LOT.

3. He was loyal. He married a commoner and stayed with her for 30 yrs. Go Tycho!!

4. He had a pet tame elk. Yeah. Guy was a rockstar. But one night, at a party during dinner, the elk drank too much beer and fell down a staircase and died. It was a moose that liked to PARTY.

5. He also kept his own dwarf. His name was Jepp and Tycho thought he was clairvoyant. Tycho liked to keep him under the table during dinner. It doesn't say how the dwarf died but I fear beer and staircases due to his experience with the elk.

6. He died of some bladder ailment. First he couldn't pee then he could only do this in extreme pain. That we have the bathroom history of a guy that lived in the 1500's is fascinating to me.

Okay, that is all I know about him so far but I think you can see how I would have become fascinated by him. He is now officially on my 'if you could have a dinner party and invite anyone living or dead' list. Possibly top of that list, really.

Do you know anything weird about anyone from history?

Ice Cream Sandwich Dessert... For the painfully thin and somewhat transparent...

I have been reading The Near Witch (by Victoria Schwab) lately (among other things...) and so far I love this book. The storytelling is beautifully wrought, the main character is witty and strong, the plot and fairytale created within the book are brilliant.

So since I can't review it yet (I haven't finished it) I figured I would share a recipe that would help fatten up one of the scrawnier characters in the story. The Stranger is a wisp of a boy and Lexi's mom is a baker, so I figure the idea of fattening him up has to have trickled through her mind at some point or another...

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/ice-cream-sandwich-desserts/detail.aspx

And if you are interested in the book, you can find it here.