It's A School Function. Leave Your Brain Behind.
2004-08-18, 9:08 a.m.

Thank You Lord for sending me to do volunteer duty before Open House. I took the chance during the past few days to clue in Daughter's teachers about Son's Aspergers and his consequential offbeat behavior. And Thank You Lord also for Daughter making such a good impression these first weeks of school. It saved me craploads of embarassment last night, but it didn't spare me all.

Son did last night as he will do. In other words, he was over Open House about 5 minutes after it began. We followed Daughter's class schedule, with each teacher giving a 10-minute presentation. He began in the first session with ignorable fidgets, progressed into full-scale wallowing (despite our firm grip on him and constant warning hisses), and by the fourth class Daughter simply HAD to get involved. She is of the mindset that her father and I are useless when it comes to reining in her little brother, and is more than happy to full-body-slam him in the blink of an eye for the slightest infraction. (Like, say, breathing.) The remainder of Open House was like trying to corral two of the Stooges into various classroom corners, praying the teachers really didn't notice, and that if they did, they didn't view us as the most dysfunctional family in attendance. Then, during our attempt to save face with formal introductions to the teachers, Son announced to each one while shaking hands that he had decided to leave his brain at home in his backpack for the evening as he didn't need it right then.

*blanch*

To get the full effect, you have to visualize it. Son is a carbon copy of little Opie Taylor, albeit skinnier, complete with red-hair cowlick and bright blue eyes and big freckle smacklings across his nose. He's downright adorable. You expect him to invite you to go fishing with him and Pa or have a big slice of Aunt Bee's apple pie. You do NOT expect him to announce he left his brain at home.

As of this morning, it still doesn't appear as if Daughter is going to recover.

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In the It-Never-Fails category: Today is Daughter's school picture day. She awakened with a raging case of pink eye.

The Everything-On-A-Kerry-Sized-Waffle Award goes to Dear Hubby for his adventures in chiropractic. Two years ago, when I visited a chiropractor for an assortment of aches and pains, I was first chided and then vetoed for it being too expensive as well as "quackery". But now that HE has a particularly annoying pinched nerve, and HE decided to try a chiropractor last week, not only is it considered a necessary additon to our budget, but a perfectly validated and legitimate branch of medicine. He has just stepped up to the Major League realm of Owing Me.

Shameless Plug O'The Day: Boat Buddy's website. http://www.geocities.com/whittlingjoe

Give him a penknife and a twig, and he can produce renderings that put Norm Abrams and his nuclear-powered woodshop to a crying shame. Keep checking for him to post his fabulous cowboy carving and, yes, The Boat.

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