Friday, November 11, 2011

"Price Tag" - Jessie J feat B.o.B.

No secret.

My family rocks.

I have a special little place in my heart for "buff".  Always have.  Even when my sister wasn't sure he was "the one".  I knew, he was.

Today I am reposting one of his posts.

He and my sweet sister have five children.  One of which has autism

In his words, ....."together we ride the E-Ticket roller coaster world of special needs and smile (for the most part) while holding on for dear life."

Enjoy:


The Price We Pay For Happiness...

The telephone rang, breaking the monotonous sound of the steamer, as my wife scrubbed the kitchen floor. She picked up the receiver and politely replied, 'Hello.'

'This is Visa, we are calling regarding some questionable activity on your account. We see that you have several closely timed iTunes purchases occurring, that seemed quite large, and rather questionable. Have you recently made any purchases on iTunes?'

'I don't think so...' my wife answered, thinking of any recent receipts that we may have received in an email.

The voice in the phone proceeded, '...two purchases were authorized, and a third was declined because it appeared suspicious.'

Just then Emma was heard shouting from upstairs, 'Mom, Ethan's downloading a bunch of movies on iTunes!'

'Oh, my gosh,' my wife shouted as she ran up the stairs with phone in hand. Arriving at the computer there was Ethan squatting on the chair, calm as he could be, intently reading the images on the screen.

'Mom, I bought a movie on iTunes!' he said proudly.

My wife returned to the voice on the phone and said, 'I'm sorry, my son apparently got on the computer and was downloading them. He has autism, I don't now how he figured this out. Ugh! I'm so sorry.'

'No problem, we recognized it as suspicious and just wanted to confirm. Again we declined payment on the last purchase. You may want to call Apple and explain this and see what they can do for you.'

'Thank you, Oh my gosh, again, I'm so sorry.' She then hung up and called me. I wasn't able to talk, but quickly understood her brief explanation. 'I'll take care of it when I get home,' I said and we quickly hung up.

When I arrived home I walked upstairs to the computer and checked the iTunes history. There they were the three purchases. Two showed paid in full the last showed declined. I checked on the computer and saw that we had indeed downloaded those movies so I reauthorized the purchase.

I walked in to where Ethan was and asked, 'Hey buddy, what happened?'

'Dad, did you see it?' he said proudly. He stood up, his feet spread apart, placed his hands on his hips then broke out in a giant grim, said 'Hey Dad!' and raised his eyebrows up and down in unison. It looked something like this . . .

This was his famous 'I'm proud of myself' pose! After striking the pose, his young-man-voice crackled and screeched, 'I bought movies on iTunes!'

'Yes, you did,' as I smiled and simply walked away.

What else could I say? Anything would have dashed his pride, and besides that it wasn't like he hurt somebody. Besides we can change the password, and make sure this doesn't happen again, but I just couldn't harm this proud moment in his life. He, on his own, had bought movies - and not just any movies, good movies, including some classics.

I didn't have the heart to be mad.

Some days happiness seems expensive, like when he cut the tips off all the cell phone chargers, other times it requires deep pressure hug therapy, or a few yoga poses. Then there are those days it is simply free!

So, what was the price we paid for happiness today?

$122.62 (tax included)
 
 
 

26 comments:

Danielle C. said...

That is great! Even better that he picked good movies, what were they? :)

jymmebe said...

Soul Surfer, Rio, Rango, Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Space Jam, Pocahontas, Tarzan, Cats Don't Dance, Care Bears, a few Land Before Time, Palnet 51, Richie Rich, and The Wizard of OZ...

bobbi said...

♥ this post.

so much.

CautiouslyAudacious said...

Love this post! This is a reminder to look for the good in every situation!

TriMOEngr said...

I have a close friend that is dealing with an autistic 10 year old and I never cease to be impressed with the way that she takes the "roller coaster" moments in stride, thanking God for allowing her to be the mother of such a special child. Sounds like "buff" is just like that. Allowing his son to have a moment of pride even though it came with a price. God bless them! I hope everyone enjoys the movies. :)

Laura said...

Love love this!
Willy Wonka?!...even better. Good on him.

Jason said...

Very touching. Thanks for sharing. It allows us to look at the world apart from our own scenarios and that is awesome!

tahoegirl said...

Thank you for bringing me back to reality today. That really touched me.

jymmebe said...

Wow! Never expected this...so nice of you to share a small bit of our world with our special boy! :)

Love you!
Evie

Caroline said...

so special and lovely
He handled that perfectly
I love the picture of the 2 of them

E-ticket sounds like one that comes with great life lessons...

(love that song also...!)

Aimee said...

What a great post! AND, I love his "I am proud" pose!

Unknown said...

Amazing post. Thank you Emz.

MCM Mama said...

Awesome post! "Buff" handled this in such an amazing way. Love it.

Angie said...

Love

Carrie said...

I LOVE the perspective of this post. We can't control the events in our life, but we CAN control how happy we are. PRICELESS!!!

Char said...

Moments of achievement like that have no price,. That's just a gorgeous story.

5 Miles Past Empty said...

Thank you for sharing this....I can't even explain how this post has touched my heart. Love and family and our children's pride are indeed priceless.

Ara said...

LOVE this. I need this reminder every so often. You can always look for the good in every situation. It might be hard to find, but it's gotta be there somewhere.

Sweat Is My Sanity said...

Oh how sweet. It must be difficult to see him struggle at times, but you sound like the perfect mom!!!
I would only hope to be that patient with one of my children and to react in such a loving way.

runningtobeskinny.com

Unknown said...

Awww... I absolutely love this! :)

The Green Girl said...

Loved this. What a great attitude.

Fe-lady said...

One kid on the spectrum is worth 10 who aren't. My life's work. Love them.

Anonymous said...

So funny, I am a BCBA and just a few weeks ago one of my clients (an adult with autism who lives in a group home) was all upset because the internet was blocked. The company thought it was care-staff, and blocked it. Nope, one of the residents had been getting up at night and buying porn movies. With his social security funds.

Anonymous said...

So funny, I am a BCBA and just a few weeks ago one of my clients (an adult with autism who lives in a group home) was all upset because the internet was blocked. The company thought it was care-staff, and blocked it. Nope, one of the residents had been getting up at night and buying porn movies. With his social security funds.

Unknown said...

Having worked with Autistic for many years.... I shout out a "Big thanks" to your sister!

Sarah said...

Haha!!! What a great story!