Comedy Through The Chaos

Hey, everybody. And happy Thursday to you here in the Cadre sphere. I am Ms. Shannon. I am checking in because as you can probably hear, I am on the road and I'm driving in the great state of Minnesota where I live. And we've had a very wet couple of days. And so currently I am in some weird traffic because I am running much later to get to a location than I thought I was. Hello, Andi Mack. Hello, everybody. I'm gonna check in with you because it took me so much longer to get to where I was going that I wanted to pop in here anyway.

Hello, Speak Wonder. So I didn't have time to go, hey, it looks like the traffic's gonna be bad, so I'm gonna find a good place to pull over and talk to you guys all. Happy June as we continue throughout the rest of this month. Hello, Amar. Thank you very much to see you as well. It's been an interesting month for a lot of us here in the Cadre sphere, so I'm always happy to to join in and talk to all of you. And today I want to share another little tidbit about how the little things matter. Is it hot there, Erie?

It was hot here the last part of last week and now it's cool and rainy, so we'll take that. But it's that weird time of year here where, where I am, it's just incredibly wet. And in other parts. Hi, Nikki. Good to see you. In other parts of Minnesota, what people are getting is maybe we're going to have flash budding. That is never a good. Maybe we're going to end up having some tornado warnings out in outlying parts of the Twin Cities. So I hope everybody who, wherever you are with this really odd summer weather that you are safe.

You are safe. I am actually in a really good mood. I'm on my way to actually film the TV series version of comedy through the chaos. And so you'll get to hear more about that as we continue to build it out. So we are doing our pilot season, so in a few minutes I'll be sitting down with some of my comedian friends who also use laughter in order to process some of the complexities we have in our life. So I'm on my way to go and talk to them. I expected to be there 45 minutes ago. So. Life is how life does.

So but the thing I wanted to tell you that I'm so excited about this week is, as I mentioned before, I have an adorable 17 year old kiddo who is high supports on the autism Spectrum. He is my heart. And we have a great deal of adventures. And so a lot of what I do as a caregiver with him is putting him in the path of information, putting him in the path of resources. Just trying to make sure that I fill his funnel in a variety of ways. And often I have no idea if or when some of these skills are going to come back out, but they're things that I hope will help him thrive.

And so, you know, we're working, we're always kind of working on something. There's always an adventure. And the other day he likes handwriting. And so we have a couple of clipboards around the house with pens and pencils in them that are pretty accessible. So the other day he requested one of his clipboards. And what he says quite often is he'll say, right name. So I said, okay, right name you want to write. So I went and I got his clipboard and he took it and then he looked at me and then he drew a circle and then he said eyes.

And he drew two eyes on it. And then he said nose. And he drew a nose and then a mouth and then even some eyebrows and finally a little tuft of squiggly hair on the top of this face that he drew a smiling face. And then he said hands. And he added two adorable stick figure hands and some stick figure legs. And we have an adorable smiling, no necked face on this piece of paper. And I had the most mom joy that I have had in years because if I had asked him, hey, draw me a picture, usually that's not something that he would respond to.

He wouldn't draw me a picture. But for him to go ahead, draw this picture unsolicited is really good. I was impressed. And for him to broaden his skill set out that way, I am not sure how long I've been fueling into him for him to be able to self soothe to the point that he would find that interesting or to go, you know, a lot of what we've been working on when I. The language I use when I'm talking to his behaviorist is finding ways for him to select his own leisure activities and to occupy himself in a way that's appropriate.

But on his own, because a lot of times I'm the one that has to come up with things to occupy him. And then he has a couple of behaviors that are really manifest when he's bored. So him bored, not a good thing. But there's a way that he brings it up all the time to try and get me to come up with something for him to do. So the fact that he did this completely unsolicited on his own gives me the most mom joy that I've had in ages. And it gave me something adorable to put on the refrigerator. So I know it seems like it's a little thing, like, okay, yeah, your kid drew a happy face.

You know, he drew a picture for you. There's people that do that all the time, but for us, it's a big deal. And there might be things in your journey as a caregiver that, yeah, they seem really small to everybody else in the world, but for you, it's a big deal and you're allowed to go, no, this is huge for me and to enjoy it. And I was like, you know what? Like I said before, I was like, oh, my gosh, I'm really proud of you. That's great. So he's done a couple. He's got a couple of them. And I have some new art on the refrigerator.

And I will make sure that when I finally do make it to my location, I'll add in a picture so you can see the beautiful, not quite award winning, but smile making art that my kiddo came up with. So give yourself some credit for those little things. Give yourself time to celebrate big and small. Don't save up your celebrations for when we get to this one milestone, Then that's when we're gonna celebrate. Don't go, oh, my gosh. When my kid draws a picture with a neck, that's the day I get to celebrate.

Like, oh, well, this one isn't as good as I know that he's eventually gonna do. So I'm not gonna celebrate. Celebrate the little ones, celebrate the milestones as you get there and bring a little joy into your life. And so I am happy that I get to look at my refrigerator and giggle at the fact that he made a. Basically, it's a potato head. He drew me a potato head face. And I'm loving it, absolutely loving it. So love yourself, love the people that you caretake for. Give yourself some space. Continue to blend all of the things that you can.

And we appreciate you being part of what we have going on here in the Cadre sphere. That's a pothole, y' all. That is a Minnesota pothole. They are in 1,000ft, so use the right lane to exit right two, exit 318. Minnesota are no joke. They will eat your whole car. They will eat your entire car. And you'll be like, I had a car and then the pothole ate it. So everybody be safe out there. Continue to check in with us. Continue to let us know what we can do here in the cadres. For exit right two, exit 41A, 35W South.

Don't get lost. If you do get lost, we'll always come back around. So I will see you guys next week and then check back in here later today. As soon as I land at this next spot, I'll pop in that picture of my Mr. Potato Head face. So appreciate you guys. See you soon.