It is Saturday morning and I have just woken up. Daddy is still sleeping beside me as he has had a long week at work in the recruiting office. They usually are. It is about 10:15 in the morning. I have awoken to the sound of our eight year old little angel singing her heart out through the monitor. She is singing one of her very favorite song, “Rescue pack, comin’ to the rescue …” It is from one of her favorite shows Diego, the Animal Rescuer. I lay in bed awhile longer trying to just rest before my day begins. Once my day starts it is an all day affair with no rest for the weary.

I finally decide to get up and out of bed around 10:30 because Mari is now saying, “Let’s go potty.” Now typically if Mari says “Let’s go potty” it is only to get out of doing something she no longer wants to do and not that she really needs to go potty. So I am pretty skeptical. The only drawback is you just never know when she actually has to use the potty. So I decide I had better go downstairs to get her out of her room to put her on the potty.

As I get closer to the door, you can just hear her saying over and over again, “Let’s go potty, let’s go potty, let’s go potty, let’s go potty.” I know it will NEVER stop until I get her out of her room as she is one persistent and stubborn little thing due to her autism. It’s kind of like we are at Burger King all the time, it ALWAYS has to be Mari’s way.

I take her out of her bedroom, put her hand in mine and take her to the bathroom across from her room. I unzip her blanket sleeper, pull down her Goodnight, and she sits down on the potty. Now, a typical, average, everyday person once they have woken up in the morning would sit on the toilet and go to the bathroom RIGHT AWAY. Not Mari. We sit, and sit, and sit, and then sit some more. Twenty minutes have now gone by and still no pee-pee on the potty for our little Mari. Boy does she have some good bladder control. Now Mari is saying, “All done.” I know that we could sit there for the next hour or two and she probably will still not have gone. So, I stand her up. She pulls up her goodnight. I take her blanket sleeper all the way off now because it is time to get dressed for the day.

We go back into her room to find an outfit. I am so organized with all of her clothes. If there is a top there is an exact bottom that matches it. If daddy or someone else tries to dress her and put the wrong items together, I have to go back and put the appropriate outfit on her. I pull out one of my favorite outfits for her. It is from the Mary Kate and Ashley line. I love almost all of the outfits they have come out with.

The top has long sleeves. The sleeves and the bodice are different because they are crocheted with a thin burnt orange yarn. The bottom half of the top is a cream t-shirt type material. Because the bodice is crocheted, the t-shirt type material goes up underneath it kind of like a tank top so the bodice is not see-through this way. There are two embroidered flowers, one of the left and one on the right, on the crocheted bodice. Towards the bottom right (if you are looking at the top) is another embroidered flower attached to the t-shirt material. The pants are jeans. They have an acid wash, wrinkled look to them. The jeans have double stitching on each seam and one thread is daisy yellow while the second thread is burnt orange. Towards the top of the pants have a special patterns that sort of looks like a big upside down crown where they attached the pants and used a zigzag stitch with burnt orange for the thread and a straight stitch with daisy yellow for the thread. On the front right jeans pocket (if you are looking at the jeans) has several embroidered flowers with an embroidered butterfly in many different colors. On both of her back pockets, the top half on the left pocket and the bottom right side on the right pocket, are multi-colored embroidered flowers as well. When this outfit is worn it just looks so feminine while at the same time it looks so incredibly cute.

I hand her the pants and she sits on the floor to put them on. I then hand her the shirt. She struggles a little so I help her put it on. We are all dressed now and Mari says, “Preacakes! Preacakes! Preacakes!” I stop her and say, “Mama, I want some preacakes please” while I sign to her the words. Mari then repeats back to me, “Mama, I want preacakes please.” I figure it is close enough so we are off to the kitchen to make us some preacakes.

So the first think I do is to pull out the griddle so it can start heating up. Mari starts to flap her arms in excitement because she knows she is getting her preacakes. I then pull out a bowl to mix the ingredients in. I pull over the step ladder so she can help me at the countertop. I ask Mari to go and get the Bisquick. She goes to the pantry, pulls out the big heavy box of Bisquick and places it on the countertop. I then pull out a 1/3 measuring cup. I measure the first cup full of Bisquick and she dumps it in the bowl. We do this five more times until we have two cups of Bisquick in the bowl. Then I ask Mari, “Ok, what is next?” So she steps down off the ladder, she opens the refrigerator and pulls out two eggs. She brings them over to me, steps back up on the ladder. I break the shells and put the eggs in. Then I ask Mari, “Ok, what is next?” She then steps back down, goes back to the refrigerator and pulls out the gallon of milk. She brings it over to me and she is back up on her ladder. I pull out a Pyrex two cup measuring cup and pour about one and a quarter cups of milk into it. I hand it to Mari and she pours it in. She then goes to the utensil draw and pulls out a whisk. She gets back up on her ladder and starts to stir the batter. She does a pretty good job but it is not quite all stirred so I finish mixing it until it is completely stirred.
So now I pour about a third of a cup of batter onto the griddle. I place four more round circles of batter onto the griddle and we watch them as they start to cook. Mari is just so excited. She starts to flap her “wings” again. The preacakes take about 3 to 4 minutes to cook and then they are done.

Mari goes and puts herself into her highchair that she has had since the day she was born. I close the lid. I place the three preacakes on a plate, butter them, cut them up into easy to eat squares, and then add syrup. I bring the plate and a fork over to Mari. She immediately digs in. Mari tries so hard to use a fork but ultimately gives up and just uses her hands. By the time she is done eating you ask yourself, “Did she get any of it in her mouth?” as it is all over her face, hands, and the clothes we had just put her in for the day.

So I take her out of her high chair, get her all cleaned up and Mari is off to play for the rest of the day.