Blog of the month for November, plus a present for its owner

This month I'm putting in my sidebar the awesome hand drawn logo of Bec, who blogs at Snagglebox - Autism Parenting Support (and can also be found on Twitter here and on Facebook here).

Bec's blog is an awesome resource for autism parents; it's informative and helpful, but most importantly... it's FUNNY. You might remember Bec from a previous The Funniest Thing I've Seen All Week where I laughed my ass off about Tarzan and pronoun reversals, but this month she's getting her own spot in my sidebar. Because the world needs to know about Bec, she's simply not famous enough, and I know that by doing this I will get her at least two new readers. Maybe three.

Oh, and then there's one other thing...... I don't exactly remember why, but at some point I told her I would draw a picture of myself in a french maid's uniform. I was probably drunk at the time (obvs) and I seriously don't even remember the discussion, but she has reminded me that I owe her this, and I always follow through on my promises of shitty artwork. Always.

So, Bec.... here you go. Enjoy! 

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Cancer is bullshit

I think there's a meme or a hop or something with that name, but I don't know exactly who or where. I don't mean to steal it, I'm just joining in on the sentiment.

I'm not even going to go into details, because I know that every single person reading this will think "yeah, fuck cancer!" The details aren't important, really: somebody we know, somebody we love, somebody we admire, somebody we met once... they had a family, they had friends, they had kids, they had a career..... They were loved and they are gone now and they will be fucking missed. 

And, once again, we all need to remember that life is short. All we have is today, even with a goddamn hurricane outside, but find the people you love and tell them that you love them. Don't assume that they know, don't assume that anybody knows anything; if you don't tell them, they might honestly be unaware. Make a point of it. Do it today.

Tell them you love them. Tell you them you appreciate them. Tell them.

Tell them because cancer is bullshit, and any one of us could be next.

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This one's for the nutjobs

Recently one of my tweets, talking about my vagina, was picked up by the hatesite Twitchy.com. Apparently some people who happen to be voting for Mitt Romney this year took some offense to the idea that... well, they just take offense to anything a liberal has to say, do the specifics really matter? And so they created this thread complaining about me, and suddenly I was getting it on twitter from all sides. It was really confusing, I had no idea where they were coming from until somebody told me. I mean, I'm just this little tweeter, who cares what I say? I wasn't at all bothered by it, by the way, so there's no need for you guys to tell me you're sorry about the haters. In fact, thanks to these guys, my little teeny twibbon campaign doubled its number of "supporters," so, actually ... thanks haters!!!!

I don't mean that all conservatives are nutjobs, of course, I just mean these in particular. You know, the ones who spend all their time online talking about how awful liberals are. Liberals do that, too, but I've never actually been targeted by them before, so this is my whole frame of reference. I think that rational people will agree that there are extremists on both sides of everything, but most people are cool and capable of rational discussion. Nutjobs, however, don't care about rational discussion and they create sites called Twitchy.com where people who agree with each other about how evil liberals are can talk to each other about how liberals are evil. Again, I know there are liberal sites that do this, too, I've just never been called out on one of those.

Anyway, I have this thing that Child 2 drew last weekend, and I've been sitting on it because I wasn't sure if I should post it or not. However, after having heard from all these lovely people about how much of a loser I am and how they feel sorry for my kids because of me, I've decided to post it; in their honor.

The back story is that we were having brunch with my parents and my mom asked Child 2 about politics, and he said "I hate Mitt Romney!" My mom said "hate is a really strong word," and so he took a pen and paper and wrote this, instead.

Again, I wasn't going to do anything with this, but now that the nutjobs have found me, I'm posting it for them. You may hate me simply because of what I think, which is fucking stupid, but just so you know.... I'm raising a second generation of liberals and there's not a goddamn motherfucking thing any of you can do about that.

So suck on that, bitches.





P.S. Looking forward to reading your hate comments!!!!

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Dear @AnnCoulter: This is who you insult with your words

Dear Ann Coulter:

I don't post pictures of my kids or of myself here, but if I did, now would be the time where I would show you a picture of my beautiful child, who is autistic. I would show you his picture and I would tell you that when you call people "retard," it is my child, and the adults in the disabled community who help guide his way, that you are insulting with your hate speech. My child, who is sweet and kind and is 1,000 times a better person than you are.

I don't post pictures of my kids or of myself, but my friends do, so I'm putting a linky below for anybody who wants to post a picture of themselves or of their child with special needs, and then link up below so that everybody can see exactly who it is you're insulting with your hateful ugliness.






Contact me at jillsmo at gmail.com with questions about how to use this.

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Why I don't blog much anymore

This is what I look like much of the time

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heh heh. yeah.

I did this at upworthy.com

h/t Danielle

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And the winner IS...

Fucking everybody. Everybody guessed correctly in yesterday's guessing game. Well, pretty much everybody. So, nobody gets a prize. Actually I think I might give prizes to the people who got it wrong, since there were so few of you. I'll think about it.

So, yeah. It was #3, the two different types of pasta that made him gag, but I was really surprised by that! He used to be a huge gagger (TWSS) but he's gotten so much better in the past few years that it rarely happens at all anymore; only from old food that's been left out for a while and from the smell of parmesan cheese, because, come on.... parmesan cheese smells like barf, of course that's going to make you gag. Unless you're like me and eat that stuff by the handful, because DAMN I love cheese.

But I digress..... So, Mac & Cheese, in our house, requires a lot of discussion beforehand. There are 4 different types: Short, which for some reason is what we call the classic macaroni noodle, and Regular, which for some reason is what we call the shells, and then there's orange and white. So, if I ever want to make it, I have to get preapproval for the type and color, because there can't be any surprises. Last night was "short orange" night. The problem, though, is that a long time ago I bought this huge box of regular orange at Costco and for the life of me I can't get this fucking stuff to move no matter how much I try. I'm constantly pushing the regular orange but they both constantly turn it down. I even try to sneak it into things, but I always get caught. I really need to do something with my 736 boxes of regular orange mac & cheese.

So, last night I thought I had 2 boxes left of short orange but it turned out I only had one and of course the 736 boxes of the hated kind, so when I opened what I thought would be 2 of the same kind and poured them into the boiling water without looking, I was quite surprised to find out that they were, in fact, different.

Well, shit. I'm making it anyway. It's too late at this point and I'll be damned if I'm going to throw it all out and then re-negotiate another dinner. He'll probably be pissed but he'll still at least accept it, and that was true. I mean, the look on his face was that of utter and complete bewilderment and disgust, but he did take it (and he wasn't forced to eat it in the kitchen, btw, they both had it on the couch in front of the TV. Because I'm a good mom) but he gagged on it while he was carrying it away, and I was surprised by that. It wasn't from the smell, it wasn't from the texture, it was from the clashing pasta types. I guess it's good that I can still be surprised by things at this point?

Anyway, he took it and he did (kind of) eat it, and I didn't actually take a picture of the bowl when he returned it, although I should have, but I was able to find one online to show you these relatively accurate before and after pics:

BEFORE:

AFTER:

That's pretty much how it looked, and of course my dinner for the night last night was a lovely bowl of regular orange shells that had been pawed through and then discarded. I couldn't let it go to waste.

Child 2, on the other hand, was delighted to have 2 different kinds of pasta to eat. It was like an eating adventure, he said!

I'm hungry now.

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Let's play a guessing game!!!!!!!

Why did this plate of Macaroni and Cheese, which I made tonight for dinner, make Child 1 gag?

1. Because it's orange instead of white
2. Because he was forced to eat it at the kitchen table with a fork, rather than in his room with his hands
3. Because there are two different kinds of pasta
4. Because it doesn't have enough milk mixed in with the cheese.

Go ahead and guess! Maybe the winner will get a prize :)


EDIT: While technically "all of the above" could be a correct answer on any given night, tonight there was only one specific reason.

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Pokemon is destroying my confidence as a parent

I'm fucking cool; I'm a cool parent, I swear to god. First of all, I say things like "I'm fucking cool," which, right there solidifies my status as "cool parent." I'm extremely tech savvy, I'm up on the latest tech trends, I can figure out how to make things work without the help of my kids: I'M COOL, GODDAMMIT.

I've always been determined not to be one of those "lame" parents who doesn't understand the little neurotypical games that their neurotypical little boy plays with his neurotypical little friends. I play video games with him, even if I suck at it. I listen while he explains, in excruciating detail, how he beat Koopa by throwing that turtle just at the right time. I get it. I may not care, but at least I understand; I can speak his language. I'm. Fucking. Cool.

Enter Pokemon.

I don't know what it is about those stupid things that just makes my brain completely shut down. I didn't even understand what they were for a long time; I had to ask somebody on Twitter (everybody say thank you to GoodNghtIrene), and even now it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. They're pocket monsters, they have unique skills, they fight each other. When they talk, they only use words that are variations of their own names, for some reason. (I find that very annoying).

You collect them. You play a card game. You watch the TV show. You talk about them incessantly. These are all relatively simple things, right? I'm fucking smart; I should be able to understand this, but NO! I just don't get it.

Over the weekend Child 2 tried to teach me how to play, and I sat there at the kitchen table, trying very very hard to understand, but it was like he was speaking a different language. Hubs tried to help, too, but it just wasn't sinking in.

Eventually I just threw up my hands and said "NO! I'M NOT DOING THIS! I DON'T UNDERSTAND THIS I CAN'T DO THIS!" while Child 2 is still insisting, "It's easy. I'll teach you." NO NO NO NO NO NO!!!!!

And then earlier today I'm in Target, and my mission is to purchase some new cards that got ruined yesterday during a game (OMG don't ask), and I'm staring at this display and... what? What am I supposed....? I don't underst-..... So, I call hubs (because Child 2 doesn't have a phone and I can't call him) and say "What am I getting?" and he starts rattling off my various options and I'm looking at this display and I am unable to make the connection between what I'm seeing and what he's saying. Dragon Exalted? I don't see any dragons. Which one is exalted? Where does it even say that? Which one of these packages should I be looking at? OH MY GOD I don't know what I'm doing.

What is that.... I don't even....

I'm not a cool mom, after all. I'm a lame mom.

Goddammit, I'm a fucking lame mom.

I HATE YOU, POKEMON!!

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Discovering the Bosley difference

There are these obnoxious commercials you sometimes see on late night TV (I saw them when I was watching Adult Swim) for this hair restoration procedure, which is really just a scam for men to shell out thousands and thousands of dollars because society dictates that you must look a certain way if you ever want to have sex with anybody... and they show these before and after pictures of these guys and they ask "which picture looks better?" Except in the before picture the guy is always sad, forlorn and bald, and in the second picture the guy is always happy go-lucky and with hair.  Observe:

Does Joe look better without hair....

or with hair....

Huh. I wonder what that Bosley "difference" is, exactly?

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Pure, unadulterated bragging

I don't even care how obnoxious this will sound, I'm so proud of my kid right now, and also myself, so I'm going to brag my fucking ass off right here right now! Sorry if this is annoying, maybe you want to skip this one if you're tired of rainbows and unicorns.

I don't think I've talked about Child 1 and homework here for a while. It's a struggle, to say the least. I'm incapable of doing it with him and we had a tutor for years but this year I decided we couldn't really afford it anymore, so I guess fuck homework? We just won't do it, I don't care. It's not worth it.

Fortunately for everybody in the entire world, though, we got the greatest teacher who ever lived this year, who happens to be a former Special Ed teacher, and who totally fucking gets it. So, I told him about our homework issues and maybe there's a way to figure out how to get him to do it by himself? In the end it's the goal, anyway, so let's give it a try?

So I said, let's come up with something really really easy just to get him in the habit of doing it by himself; like one page with two math problems on it, and I will withhold his fun stuff until he gets it finished and our wonderful fabulous teacher came up with a modified homework packet. Very very simple stuff. (Have I mentioned how awesome this guy is? He's also the teacher representative on the PTA Executive Board and I have now learned that he gets really embarrassed when you say these things to his face and in front of his boss, the principal, who also goes to those meetings).

Anyway, today was our first day having math homework. Child 1 has a mental block about math; in a nutshell it's an emotional thing for him, he hates it and it makes him cry. However, he's actually really good at math and I know this because 1. I've watched him do multiplication in his head and 2. His IAs constantly tell me that he whips this shit out like nobody's business when he's in class. His thing, though, is to say "I don't know how" or "I can't do this, it's too hard" or whatever.... basically he's pretending he can't so that he can get out of it, which is what makes homework such a struggle every time. But this time I took the attitude that "yes you can" and "whatever, take your time, I'll be in the kitchen and you can have your fun stuff whenever you're done."

So, he said "Tell me how to do this. I don't know how to do this, it's too hard" and I told him (and this is the part where I'm proud of myself, too) "I do not accept 'I can't do this' because you can do this. I know you hate math but I also know you can do it and that you're good at it" and I left the room.

Not 5 minutes later he comes running in, "I'm done!" and sure enough, the math problems were done. He did it all by himself, and with ease. I was SO GODDAMNED PROUD OF HIM. After the high fiving and the "you're awesomes" were done, I kneeled down and said to him "never say you can't do something, even if you don't like it and even if it's hard, because you can do anything."

He had the hugest smile. Good fucking stuff, man.

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An aspect of parenting I could happily live without

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Blog of the month: Autism Underground

This month's featured blog (in my sidebar) is a brand new blog produced by a group of anonymous autism parents called Autism Underground. It is described as "Raw, uncensored, heartfelt stories from the trenches. We are autism parents. We love our children. We're keeping it real."

Okay, well, first of all, I think it's pretty obvious that I am one of those "anonymous" parents, and I chose to be the only person who uses their real name so that I can pimp out the blog and the posts to my tens of followers. Plus I don't really care what anybody thinks of the truth that I tell on the internet. There are others involved, I am not the brains behind the operation, I'm just the only one using my "real" name. But don't ask me who the other people are, 'cause nuh-uh.

It's like one big Dive Bar, but its own blog, and it's only about autism parenting. This means that the posts aren't always going to be fun to read; if you're one of those "kumbaya everything is wonderful all the time" kind of autism parents, you're not going to like it. It will make you feel uncomfortable, but that's actually the point. The other parents posting on this blog are unable to speak their truth on their own blogs, for fear of retaliation or ostracization or whatever else the internet or the real world might bring them. This blog has been created for truth telling purposes, and the truth isn't always pleasant. But it's still the truth.

What you're going to read here is real, honest, brutal, heartwrenching stories from parents in the trenches. Nobody is going to hold back, this is the real deal.

I highly recommend it.

You can also find us on Facebook here and on Twitter here. Full disclosure: I administer both of those pages. I also get the emails which are sent to AutismUnderground@gmail.com

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