I can hardly wait until they grow up and I can go crazy old lady on their ass

This week’s RTT is dedicated to my children and all the random shit they have destroyed in my house.

Here's the thing...they look really sweet and innocent – like kittens or those Mormon girls in the jean skirts. But in reality, I’m pretty sure my kids are minions of satan. Or this Not Me person whose singular focus is destruction. He probably has all three of them on retainer.

In no particular order -

1. The desktop computer – I do hold another minion of satan, the Disney Corporation, partially responsible for this one too. Every website they peddle has some kind of downloadable bullshit attached to it, and they use their mind-control techniques to force my children to download EVERYTHING they offer. And now every time I boot up, some cartoon princess pops up and tells me I need to be a good friend. Fuck you, Ariel. Like I want advice from some human-fish hybrid with daddy issues whose best friend is a lobster.

2. The keyboard – Not Me left the desk lamp on all night. This wouldn’t be a huge problem if it wasn’t also pulled down so close to the keyboard it melted all the keys left of 2WSX. My oldest explains it away by saying not having access to certain keys is just making her more creative and expanding her vocabulary.

3. The mouse and mouse pad – GUM . That’s all I have to say about that.

4. All of the lids to my pots – They have proved to be a solid stand-in when Not Me can’t find his Millennium Falcon. Or when more than one kid wants to be the drummer while playing ‘Rock Band’.

5. My COUCH. Yeah, you read that right. My oldest decided to straighten her hair in the living room while watching TV and left the straightener resting on the arm of the couch until it caught on FIRE. Good thing she’s pretty.

6. The light fixture above the kitchen table – Ohhhh….that one really hurt. It was a beautiful glass shade that was really big and fit the look of the kitchen perfectly. J was standing on the table waiting to pounce on one of the other minions and smashed it to bits with her head on the way down. And no, she wasn’t even hurt. I loved that shade. She didn’t even end up with a stitch or two.

I'm pretty sure when people first come to my house they feel like they just stepped into the ‘say hallo to my little friend’ scene from Scarface.

But without the giant mounds of cocaine and the awesome soundtrack.

Although sometimes I do like to wear my hair feathered like Michelle Pfieffer and call people ‘Mang’.

I think this post is over now.

Go see Keely.

A retarded kid and a raging bitch walk into a bar.....

Around the end of October this year my eight-year old son was diagnosed with Aspergers, which is a ‘high functioning’ form of Autism. He is on the ‘high functioning’ end of the autism ‘spectrum’.

Every time someone says that to me it feels like they are comparing my son to the newest technological equipment used for pap smears.

This diagnosis wasn’t totally out of the blue; there have been signs something wasn’t quite right since my son was a baby. He didn’t really communicate at all until he was two (he wasn’t even gesturing), and he didn’t use speech as his regular form of communication until he was three.

And then there was the tantrums. Holy good Christ, the tantrums. Four to six full-on, screaming screaming freaking out with the screaming tantrums per day. For any random thing.

He was kicked out of three daycares by the time he was three and a half years old.

For the most part, all of his behaviour problems were contributed to the fact that I was just a shitty mother. My son looked perfectly normal, therefore if I didn’t suck so tremendously at parenting him, he would just know better.

That was the position of my extended family, the daycare(s), the doctor, and even some of my friends. I was subjected to endless parenting tips because clearly, based on the behavior of my devil child, they were desperately needed.

But, deep down….I knew better.

My boy was not experiencing the world in the same way the rest of us were. He wasn’t just a spoiled little shit disturber, he was kind of ….stuck. What he saw, felt, heard and tasted was just different than the rest of us, and although we couldn’t see ‘it’, ‘it’ was often unpleasant for him.

I started calling for help, and found a fantastic organization called the ‘Early Childhood Intervention Program’. They are small and have no money (as evidenced by the fact they don’t even have a website I can link you to), but they are wonderful people who COME TO YOUR HOUSE and help teach you ways to play with your child that will stimulate learning and help remove communication barriers. And not once did any of my interventionists give me the, “wow, what a little bastard you have there” look.

I also was lucky enough to finally find a daycare that was up for the challenge my son brought them. They never considered the idea of cutting him lose because he was just too much of a pain in their ass to deal with. If they came up against a problem, they tried to fix it. Sometimes it would work, and sometimes it wouldn’t. But they didn’t give up on him and consequently, he had a place to go everyday where he felt safe and happy and was surrounded by people who didn’t just tolerate him, they loved him.

I look back at that time now as the two years of cease fire. We coexisted in this world without having to do battle.

Oh, how I wish I knew then what I know now. I would have enjoyed that peace a lot more that I did.

My boy had to leave that wonderful daycare to start school. I knew it wasn’t going to go well, so I tried to meet with the kindergarten teacher prior to school starting to debrief her on the ways and means of Jake. I wanted to give her a little history, and possibly pass on some ‘lessons learned’ from the daycare regarding how Jake needs to handle group situations.

The kindergarten teacher poo-pooed me and chalked me up to a nervous mom who was apprehensive about her son starting school.

Her - Oh, Mrs. FoN, I’ve been doing this for many years now, and they eventually adjust.

Me – Um, maybe….but…Jake has some communication and sensory issues since birth, and….

Her – You don’t have to worry about it now! He’ll be in great hands.

Me – I don’t doubt you are the most kick-ass kindergarten teacher since the chick from Romper Room, but there are a few behaviours you should be prepared for. The daycare….

Her – Really, we will do just fine. Have a good day!!

*hustles me out of the room*

Predictably, that same teacher called me four days into the school year. It wasn’t going that well. No shit? Hmmm.

Who would have thunk it, huh?

It was that phone call that started the fight I have had to wage and will continue to wage for the foreseeable future.

I knew Jake was on the autism spectrum, but I was really scared to be given that news.

Officially.

From someone with more credentials than Dr. Google.

But, I was repeatedly told from many sources that once a diagnosis was made all kinds of wonderful doors would open and a flood of services would be available at my finger tips and we would all live happily ever after. Just like all those autistic kids on television who are charming and oh so smart and who have families who learn a wonderful lesson about love by having their lives enriched by the unexpected gift they were given of their autistic child.

So I did it. I finally pushed for a diagnosis and I got one. Aspergers.

My biggest fear of all was that once my son was given that ‘autism’ label he would immediately turn from the rotten little kid who just has a shitty mother who never taught him manners, to the retarded kid who doesn’t need to learn to read anyway so let’s just teach him how to mop up the place. You know, a skill he really needs.

Unfortunately, I was right.

Since that faithful day in November we received the official news of Aspergers, I have been battling my son’s school in an effort to get them to focus on ANYTHING other than just his behavior. He is in grade three, and suddenly the focus is not learning cursive writing or times tables, but how to put up his hand before asking a question instead of just blurting something out. A useful skill, sure, but so is READING.

I would do anything to go back to people just assuming I’m a bad parent who indulges or ignores her son and that’s why he sometimes acts like a little asshole. I would have happily taken that bullet for the rest of my life if it meant others would be required to hold my son to the same standard they hold the ‘normal’ kids.

Now I fight. Every single day. To insist my son learns the same thing the other kids are learning. LEARNING is not his problem. Learning while surrounded by 25 screaming children, colourful posters, bells ringing, music playing, that sickly glue/vomit/lunchmeat smell schools have, and the teacher yelling over all of it….that’s his problem.

So he tries to deal. He tries to deal by putting his hoodie on and wearing his hood over his head.

Not allowed in school – it’s considered disrespectful.

So he crawls under the desk to escape.

Not allowed in school - what if ALL the kids wanted to crawl under the desk?

So he puts his arms around his ears and starts banging his head on the table.

Retarded kids do that kind of thing. What are you going to do, huh?

Why don’t we back it up a few steps and just let him wear the fucking hood? There is a big difference between wearing a hood in class as a way of coping and telling Mr. Vernon to Eat. My. Shorts.

And after you let him put on the fucking hood, teach him to read, would ya?

So, here we are. No longer little bastard with the shitty mother, but the concerned mother and the poor little retarded boy who lights up the world with his smile and has a wonderful future ahead of him greeting people at WalMart.

Fuck that.

So, the fight wages on. Now we have some new goals. Jake is going to get an education, and I am going to make that happen. And hopefully stay out of prison in the process.

If I go a super long time between posts you’ll know why.

No Lifetime movie moment ending here. Sorry about that.

Sweatshops are totally underrated.

So, I gotta say that so far this summer has been da bomb. Exploiting my family and turning them into sweatshop workers paid off big time and the two weeks spent at the cabin were fabulous. Mother Nature was being a total fucking bitch and didn’t see fit to provide us with the best weather of all time, but we had enough warm and sunny days to get in some swimming, boating and general laziness, which was pretty much my entire agenda.

Yes, that's me. In a bathingsuit on the internet. That's as close as I'm getting and the imagine gets super grainy when you try and zoom in so don't even bother. But...doesn’t that look like a good time? It was. Doing sweet fuck all for two weeks was all I thought it would be and more. Here are a few shots of the cabin –



Nice, huh? See why I was willing to whore out my husband and children? Lakefront people!! Lakefront!!!

And, when the weather wasn’t the greatest we played board games. Just so you know, internet, you are reading the literary works of the all time World Champion of Scattergories. Notorious people starting with a K? The Klu Klux Klan! THREE points right there. Crimes starting with a W? Whaling! Can you think of a crime that starts with a W in under 60 seconds?? It’s not easy. Clearly being the current Scattergories Champion of the World proves I’m a superior thinker. I’ve already put it on my resume.

So now, today….I went back to work. Back to my cold and sterile office building with my desk in the middle of the hallway. Back to the mind-numbing buzz of the florescent lights. Back to words and phrases like ‘template’ and ‘Governance Committee’ and ‘Meeting of the Board of Directors’. Back to highlighters and staplers and paperclips and that little chime that goes off constantly alerting you to the fact that there is yet another new email. Sigh. The party’s over.

FoN OUT

Sup yall! Today is the day we're heading off to enjoy the fabulous lakefront cabin I acquired in exchange for turning my family sweatshop workers. The Hubby and the older kids were out there all last week doing yard work and now that all that heavy lifting is done I'm taking off for 14 wonderful day of sunning myself and drinking daiquiris. I like daiquiris.

I'm taking the laptop with me, but I have no idea what kind of connectivity they are rocking out there. I might be (shudder) completely without access. Either way I will be recording all of our adventures and taking loads of pictures so I will have plenty of material to annoy the shit out of you with when I return. Have a good couple of weeks bloggy land!

Kicking it Old School

It's been about six months since I started this blog, and in honour of my mini milestone I have decided to totally cop out and re-post my first real blog entry. Since the early beginnings I have managed to find a few other kindred souls in the Blogosphere with some older kids, but for the most part it's still pretty much mommies and their ankle bitters. Oohhhhh, are YOU guys in for a treat!

Don't Say I Never Warned You

I know I am new to the whole mommy blogger phenomenon, but as far as I can tell I am the only one on here who has older children. All the rest of you are up to your eyeballs in dirty diapers, suffering sleep deprivation, running after toddlers just learning to walk and trying to teach your kids that shoving tic-tac's up their nose doesn’t end well. I speak from experience – I once raced frantically to an emergency room with my toddler who had managed to shove at least one and possibly more tic-tac's up his nose. He shoved one so far up there, in fact, that you could actually see the visible lump in perfect tic-tac formation poking out just slightly below the bridge of his nose and just over from his left eye. Yeah, I don’t know how he managed that either.

After waiting in the emergency room for decades to see whatever twelve year-old and/or foreign exchange student intern they had working at the time the tic-tac had melted sufficiently and they sent me home with a stern warning to not let my two-year old have tic-tac’s anymore. Nothing like not only feeling like a horrible parent for not appropriately supervising the toddler/breath mint combo, but I also had the privilege of spending FOUR HOURS in a hospital with a crying/tired/minty-fresh toddler and was then subsequently judged by a doctor who was probably in charge of organizing the pub crawl for later that weekend.

I do remember the stress of being a first time parent and the parent of young children. They’re messy, demanding, totally clingy and do not respond whatsoever to compromise or logic. When it comes right down to it, toddlers are pretty much like the worst boyfriend you ever had. Except for the fact that you inexplicably love them more than anything on earth (even though a large percentage of the time they make you want to grab the nearest sharp and pointy object and jab it as hard as possible into your ear just to get some relief).

I remember all of this, and to a certain degree I’m still right in there with you. However, in addition to my darling almost three-year old Lena and hysterically odd seven-year old Jake (tic-tac incident) I have another one, and that one is FIFTEEN YEARS OLD. Oh yes, the stories I could tell about this fascinating daughter of mine does indeed warrant the use of the dreaded ‘ALL CAPS’.

So, this presents an interesting factor that none of the rest of you need to deal with. My oldest spawn can actually read this, right NOW whenever she wants. I know, most of you have little ‘dear So and So’ pages you will faithfully update with the intent of having So and So read all about their first years, gain some insight as to who their mother really is, etc., etc. Yeah, that’s all fine and good when they’re TWO. In fact, this will not be any real concern of yours for a good decade or so. That gives you a whole lot of time to reconsider if posting the picture of your cute little man wearing his sister’s dress while shoving his nose in the dog's ass is really something that will ultimately advance your goal of forging an unbreakable bond between mother and child.

See, here’s the thing - you poor souls have no idea what you’re in for. You are all typing away imagining little So and So all growed up and having a good chuckle at mom’s wit all while feeling so very loved because you went through the trouble documenting their every fart. You’re thinking So and So will be all “I used to poop in the bathtub??! Awwww, Mom that’s funny, and by the way, thanks so much for cleaning it up all those times. Do you want to go for a walk and hold hands?” Well folks, I hate to burst your blogger bubble, but in reality, it will likely go down a little more like this -

(boy version) – “MOM! Get that shit off the internet right NOW. Take down your stupid website, you’re so GAY. And MOVE ‘cause I want to play World of Warcraft with Blaze (it will be around 2018 by this point so your kids will likely have friends named Blaze or Titan since we have had a rash of very unfortunate baby names of late. For some reason there is a growing group of parents who, in an effort to prove their own uniqueness, name their kids something completely ridiculous. Really, this trend needs to stop now or we’re going to end up with a Prime Minister named Spirtall. Yes, believe it or not I actually know a kid with that name).

or

(girl version) – “OH!! MY!! GOD!! I can’t believe you would tell the WHOLE WORLD about me and say such totally embarrassing things. Take it off right now or no one will ever talk to me again and you totally SUCK!!” (stomp–stomp–stomp–stomp–stomp-stomp- SLAM).

No, my little blogging friends, what you are writing right now will not please your little ones at ALL. You know when they will like it? When they are in their thirties and have started their own blogs staring YOU. Who’s going to have the last laugh then?

The Things I'll do for Fish

I am home for a rest after spending a mostly relaxing weekend in British Columbia, the land where everyone refers to their items by brand name, not description. As in, “The airline lost my Peg Perego” (an infant car seat) or “I just love walking in my Saucony’s” (shoes). I spent a lot of time nodding and smiling as to not appear to be the prairie hick luddite who owns a playpen, not a ‘Baby Bjorn’. I’m tired. Not only for the mental exhaustion that comes with trying to pretend I have any clue what people are talking, but also because I’m still recovering from the trip to the Vancouver Aquarium with two three year-old girls and a four month old baby in the middle of a Saturday.

Armed with a Primo Viaggio (stroller), the girls, snacks to satisfy every anticipated whim of a toddler, a baby, and at least two cell phones in case we needed to call for back-up, off we went to see the whales, dolphins, various kinds of fish and maybe an otter or two.

After we arrived and had to circle the parking lot for 15 minutes before finding a spot, a slow, dawning realization came to my friend and I that this might be challenging. We kept quiet though, out of respect for the other who may have decided to comfortably embrace the warm bosom of delusion.

It appeared there were quite a few people that picked the same day to take in the aquarium. Undeterred, we set about the process of un-buckling the girls, getting the baby settled in his stroller, and hauling out the bags, toys, snacks, tequila and valium before we forged ahead into the great unknown.

We arrived at the doors to the aquarium, steeled our nerve and prepared for battle. At some point during the walk from the parking lot the girls had managed to apply war paint which went perfectly with the low hum of jungle drums that were suddenly playing in my head. I even heard a monkey squawk. Wait a minute…aren’t we at an aquarium? There were people EVERYWHERE.

We were to meet two friends and their children at the entrance (safety in numbers), but alas, only one made it. We were only an hour into our voyage when traffic took out our first solider. We bought a stuffed beluga at the gift shop and sent it to her family with notes of kind regard.

The girls were not at all shaken by news of our first casualty or the masses of resistance forces that were stationed at every corner. In fact, along with the war paint the kids had managed to organize an impressive zone-defence that would have made any NFL coach proud. After yelling a squeaky ‘BREAK!’ they each took off in opposite directions with their little heads bobbing between a sea of random legs.

Man, those kids are fast. It also didn’t help that they are also super short because it was as equally hard to see them when they are standing right beside you as it is when they are bolting towards the nearest display of sea horses.

There was some pretty cool stuff to see at the aquarium, but we only got to see it when the girls took a break from plotting our demise.


"Dude, what are you doing just standing there? It's totally your turn to take off running in the opposite direction."

Cute though, right? The cute is all part of their plan, you see. Just when you’re all ‘awwwe’ they hit you with a tantrum or an owie or a sharp and pointy toy upside the head.

But, all that stuff is okay because the way they go about it is somehow charming in its own right. One flash of that mischievous grin and even though I know I’ll pay for it with some kind of natural disaster caused by the cyclone that is the collective 60 pounds of these children, I let it happen anyway because whatever the fallout, it’s probably going to be worth it.

Although it has taken me a few days to recover and I’m not sure we won the battle, the weekend was a blast. I wish I could freeze those girls in time and visit them at this age whenever I want because right now they are about perfect. I washed off the war paint though.



p.s. If you're wondering why my kid is practically bald, read this.

p.p.s. - I should also point out that only the bald kid is mine. The other one belongs to my friend who graciously gave me permission to exploit her daughter on the internet.