No, Honey They Are DIRections!

We have an ongoing project in the backyard. My husband is building a wooden play structure for the kids. We bought it for three hundred dollars below cost and it's brand new. It is also very involved and the instruction booklet has been essential. Frequently my husband has said "Where are my directions?" and we all search the house until we find the big 8 1/2" by 11" novella so he can continue his assembly. Once we only found the Spanish version, but he can speak and read Espanol, so that worked out okay.

It said that it would take 5-10 hours to build the play set, which I felt was a bad omen. If the instructions say that it will take twice as long as you expect, that's not a good sign. My husband had to alter a few things to get it to fit in the right location and added a few extra goodies, like a balance beam off to the side.

Now, for the good stuff. Our five year old knew the routine of helping find the DIRections for the play set, so that when he saw them laying on the counter, he got really excited. "Daddy, Daddy, I found your erections!" Oh, what a difference a few letters make!

Organic Ras"pppp"berries

My darling child used to use spitting as an attention getting device. Not "ptooey" but the raspberries of monumental proportions. He sometimes would fuel the spew with a swig of water to maximize the moisture impact. He was under five years old when this behavior was in practice and the most memorable distribution of a spit shower was in a Trader Joe's store in California. Enlightened people shop at stores like that. People who seek for freedom from dyes, pesticides and tyrannical grocery chains. They buy organic couscous and Tamari roasted almonds (love them!), soy cheese and tofu, sorbet and dark chocolate.

One unsuspecting customer got a free organic raspberry. Ben fueled it with a fresh chugging of water and aimed directly in her face as she approached us on the whole grains aisle. As the projectile precipitation hit her masterfully in the face she recoiled from the shock with closed eyes, flailing arms and a gasp of shock. I apologized profusely and high-tailed my children from the store with determined speed. It was mortifying. That poor lady probably had OPSD (organic produce spitting disorder) for months. I wouldn't be surprised if her therapist had to go shopping with her to help alleviate her trauma. Although I did avoid that store for a few months until I felt safe to return again, I have since decided that this was a hilarious moment in the life of parenting an Autistic child with a sense of humor all of his own.

Now that this behavior is being revisited, I am delving a little deeper to find the humor. Humor is like a seed, it needs to be nourished and cultivated so that it can grow and giggle. It wouldn't hurt to add a little water either, but only a little, and not on the whole grains aisle.




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