Okay, first I need to take a moment to say a HUGE Thank you to everyone
who has donated to Boog's service dog, shared our story or sent us any
manner of prayers, positive thoughts or happy hippie energy. We are
currently at $9,370 which is over 85% of our $11,000 goal! I am still
completely floored by the insane outpouring of generosity! Thank you, so
much Megcentrists!!!!
And now, to catch blog readers who aren't hip to my outside life (you know, on Facebook, hehe) up on what's been going on with the Dittrich-Reeds. A little over a month ago we got the absolutely effing awesome news that Dylan was offered an assistant professor position in the Biology dept. at Clemson University. It's pretty much his dream job that he never thought he'd get (take that, impostor syndrome!) and it's located in the most adorable little wooded college town in western South Carolina.
We immediately dumped the children on my parents and ran out there into the pretty pretty money-colored sunset yelling, "Buh-bye suckas!" Okay, not exactly, but my parents did watch them and we drove out there, Dylan went to a lot of boring meetings, I took a very long walk around campus in ridiculous heels a size and a half too small for my feet because I was trying to pretend I was a real live grown-up and not a stay-at-home schlump who alternates between Chucks and flip flops only the last time I was a real live grown-up who wore real live grown-up shoes was 2 kids and a shoe size and a half ago. Anyway, blisters. Blisters is what I'm saying. My heels are still peeling.
Dyl got all the formalities settled (he even bargained. It was adorable! I'm so proud of my little introvert!) and we found a house to rent! It's huge and beautiful and really close to the university and Ry's elementary school. I'm currently in the mystifyingly interminable process of trying to get Ry signed up for school. It's very confusing for folks, apparently, because he's not old enough for kindergarten so the regular schoolfolks don't want him but he's already in a special ed program so the ChildFind folks don't need to "find" him as he's already been found. I think I've gotten it sorted out, but we'll see.
We are having to scramble to get our house fixed up and on the market. Luckily it was such a
Anyway, so we are leaving Knoxville and I'm actually starting to get a bit sentimental. It's no secret that Rocky Top and I got off to a rocky start. We left an adorable, safe little liberal college town 2500 miles away to move here and I experienced major culture shock (what do you mean there are people here who don't believe in global warming?! And where the heck are all the cute little locally-owned fair-trade boutiques with all the knickknacks from Africa and South America I can't afford?!). It took a couple of long, painful years for us to carve out our niche here. But it's been carved and in no particular order, I want to list the top 6 things (because I had more than 5 but couldn't come up with 10) I'm going to miss most when we move on:
1. Three Rivers Market - AKA Mecca AKA the place I visit sometimes an embarrassing 3 times a day because I forgot something or I just have to have those g-d Nectar Nugget peanut butter cups at 10 p.m. Three Rivers is cool with that, they don't judge me for my scatterbrained nature or peanut butter cup addiction. For those who don't live in Knoxville, Three Rivers is a food co-op and they have saved our weird little food-allergic family's butts many times.
We found them back when we first discovered Ry was allergic to dairy and I was nursing him and living on baby carrots and air because I didn't know how to cook and eat real food and everything processed was chock-full of cow-y goodness (er badness in this case). Suddenly there were things I could eat! And when things got weirder when we put him on the Specific Carbohydrate diet, Three Rivers had all the crazy out-there grain-free flours and seeds and organic chicken livers and whatnot we needed. Everyone who works there is so nice and laid-back and the new store (it used to be in this tiny rickety old house) is gorgeous and man am I going to miss them!
2. MagPies Bakery - I came here intending to go to culinary school, become a pastry chef and open my own bakery. Oh tiny little 24 year old Meg, you were so adorably young. Through some inexplicable stroke of luck I got a job at MagPies, the best bakery in Knoxville (just ask Metro Pulse a bajillion years running). This job was instrumental in convincing me that opening a bakery was NOT what I wanted to do, but I don't mean that as an insult. Peggy and her crew work HARD. They work late into the night and they come to work eaaaarly in the morning.
I worked there for 2 1/2 years transitioning from customer service and general all-around gofer girl (which I was terrible at) to icing queen (which I was less terrible at) to middle-o'-the-night baker girl (which, as there were no people to awkwardly interact with and I set my own daily schedule I was much better at) and while it was very, very hard work I loved it. But then I became a mom. To a very special Boog. His therapy schedule started to come together in all its time-sucking intricacies and his (lack of) sleep schedule wasn't jiving with the fact that Mommy only had the hours between 7 p.m. and 1 a.m. to sleep. Eventually, it was either quit or fall asleep driving the kid to PT or ST or OT or FT or GT and die in a horrible fiery car crash.
I still miss it! I made some amazing lifelong friends there and I was proud to work for an organization that believed so deeply in the quality of its products. MagPies cupcakes are still the very best thing I've ever put in my mouth and it was awesome to get to be a part of that for a little while.
3. The Sunspot - Yes, the first 3 items on my list are about food. So what? The Sunspot is the first restaurant we ever ate at in Knoxville and it will probably be the last (even though they took my beloved Granny Smith steak salad off the menu. I forgive you, Sunspot...sort of...). Their motto is "Where Tie-Dyes and Neckties Unite" and while I'm not sure I've seen many folks sporting either there, the point is that it's a slightly hippie establishment that fancy grown-up folk can go to in K-town to eat something other than pulled pork and grits (although those occasionally make appearances on the menu, too).
To me, it's the closest I've come to "California food" in the South and they have a very large selection of teh alcohols. They've also moved from a rickety ol' shithole building (after a car crashed in through the window while Dylan was drinking at the bar. True story) to a nice, light, airy, hipstery repurposedy looking space a little further down the road. I'm going to miss the food and the booze and the general ambiance.
4. Knoxville Center for Autism - A couple of years ago, right after Boog got his PDD diagnosis, I learned about this magical type of therapy called "Applied Behavioral Analysis" at the exact same time that we switched insurance companies to one that would actually cover aforementioned therapy. Miraculously, there was even one BCBA in town who took this insurance! When we started in 2011, KCA was just one awesome lady, Sara Gilbert, and an assistant in 2 tiny rooms in an old house in West Knoxville. Today Sara employs several other therapists and has moved into 2 suites in an office complex nearby where they offer not only private ABA but social skills groups, special summer programs in sensory integration, math, reading, and social skills and parent training programs.
KCA has been miraculous for Boog. He's made such strides across the board since he started ABA and he loves going there. To him, his therapists are his friends and he's always happy to greet them with a smile and some strange form of physical contact that they tolerate because they're awesome. They've advocated for us with our insurance company when his hours got cut and they created an entirely new protocol for Boog when he was so sick this winter to try to keep him from being exposed to germs. We're currently on the waiting list for an ABA practice near Clemson but we're going to miss KCA very, very much.
5. Knoxville Holistic Moms - Sadly I am such an introverty hermit that I didn't discover the Holistic Moms Network until last summer. What I found was a cool bunch of ladies who are all different but who share a common goal to live a bit more in tune with nature. So, basically, I found my hippies. I also found my neighbor Jenny who, despite living down the street from us for several months didn't know we existed. I knew she existed because she had a drying rack full of cloth diapers out front and a Coexist sticker on her car and every time I drove by her house, I thought, "Man, I should really meet her!" but then it's kinda weird and creepy to go up and knock on someone's door and say, "Hey, I dig your bumper sticker! Let's be friends!"
But I went to that first HMN meeting and saw her car out front and finally got the balls to say, "Um, you live 50 feet from me. Wanna hang?" And now we're great friends.
I'm incredibly bummed that there's no HMN chapter in Clemson. In fact there are no chapters in the entire state of South Carolina! Maybe I'll start one...you know...in my free time.
6. Lisa Ross Birth and Women's Center - I had RyRy the mainstream way - by scheduled "post-date" induction in a hospital. The nurses were attentive and kind and I liked my obstetrician, but the experience itself was terrible. When I became pregnant with Pippa, I knew I wanted to go a different route. I wasn't quite brave enough to attempt a home birth, but there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell I was stepping foot in a hospital again. Enter Lisa Ross: the only free-standing midwife-run birth center around. And 5 minutes from my house!
While I had a bit of a disagreement with one of the midwives over my weight gain (there's an earlier blog to this effect), the rest of them were very chill and knowledgeable and generally just checked me and baby out and then let me be, which is exactly what I wanted. During Pippa's birth, the attending midwife was fantastic. When in pain, I'm like an injured animal. When giving birth, I'm like an injured animal with big, sharp pointy teeth. In other words I just wanted to be left alone in the dark to pace and I didn't want anyone to so much as whisper to me. The midwife came in at first, tried to rub my back and drew me a bath. I growled. She retreated. She spent most of my labor sitting in the hallway so I could be alone. It. Rocked. She came and checked on baby every 30 minutes and between times I was left alone to drink coconut water, eat Larabars and growl at Dylan to leave me alone. And I got to go home 6 hours after Pippa's birth to be left alone to snuggle my baby and nurse. It was exactly what I wanted.
So, bye Knoxville! I'll miss your scruffiness and your tiny pockets of liberalism and your rolling, green hills! We both knew this wasn't a forever thing, but I will remember you fondly.
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| Photo from tripadvisor.com |
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