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Posts tagged as:
Humor
Having the J-Man gone has been rather disorienting. We’ve handled it OK enough I suppose, mostly by staying incredibly busy and not allowing ourselves time to think much about it. Though I did turn on the video monitor a couple of times last night and tip-toe by his room once just from seriously ingrained habit. I admit part of me has accepted that I did need a bit of a break, and having a lot of continuous time to dedicate completely to Not-So-Little E has made me realize how important quality time like that can be.
Earlier today, I was staring out the kitchen window at our little patch of woods in the backyard. I was wondering (or worrying about) how the J-Man was doing, stressing about life, and generally looking blankly out at nothing when Nature decided to tell me what she thought about all this.
I was startled out of my infinite stress loop by a squirrel falling (with style) out of a tree and onto the top of our swing set, where – without any hesitation or wasted motion – it decided to assume the cat stance and lick its own butt.
Well, that’s one way of getting your point across. I get it, already. Thanks. Now don’t do it again!
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I usually try to dissect the curious events of our day for their meaning, deep or otherwise. But I just got nothin’ for you on this one.
The J-Man’s Preschool Class of Autistic Wonderment joined the older grades from the ‘regular’ classrooms for a school assembly of sorts where some cover band (who I assume cater to the elementary school crowd) did a cappella versions of familiar songs. Note, though, that this is the kind of a cappella group where many of the singers are acting as the instruments, which can be both loud and rather sensory-overloading.
Anyway, they did covers of Rihanna (I’m so uncool that I had to look up how to spell her name) and the Jonas Brothers (no comments on the strange irony of this from those of you with inside knowledge) to what I’m sure were the grating squeals of dozens of little girls, along with a bunch of other songs. The older kids sang along, but for nearly all the songs, the J-Man had his head buried in his teacher’s lap – a.k.a. the ostrich defense.
But for one, he perked right up and started having a great fun time. I really tried to find a way to cleverly lead into this, but to no avail. Just listen and see.
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Like I said, I just got nothin’ for ya here.
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It continues to be barely-organized bedlam here at the Flashlight house. The J-Man has expressed scant opinion of his little brother, however, though in a gesture of uncertain motive, he did take the diaper changing mat off of the changing pad and dropped it over the baby while he was sleeping. It managed to land in an appropriate, blanket-like position, but it could just as easily have been a byproduct of the J-Man’s dislike of cloth/paper/similarly-thin items being anywhere but on the floor or in a container.
So we continue to attempt to discern his mood about Baby Brother with little luck. However, I did see him complete this fine piece of work as part of what has turned into his regular meditation through building blocks. I’ll let you ponder what I think it resembles.
OK, I’ll spare you the pondering. Is he giving us a big, two-foot-tall, multi-colored middle finger about life in general right now? We report, you decide. 
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The J-Man was born during Hurricane Katrina, though we are many hundreds of miles away from New Orleans. However, our hospital politely but insistently urged us out the door to make room for the wave of Katrina moms heading our way. That was fine by us, though, as we didn’t want to be there any longer than necessary. 36 hours was plenty.
So, just in time for the impending arrival of The Bean, we have THE FLU FORMERLY KNOWN AS SWINE FLU PANIC! Ignoring the actual realities of whether this constitutes a real emergency, there are practical issues here to consider. The first place in a hospital they’re going to lock down in the event they go into some sort of quarantine mode – at about the same time as the ER – is the labor and delivery wing. The hospital we’re going to has a completely separate L&D unit with only one way in, which means they can completely barricade it if necessary. And just because it’s us, Lord knows they probably will by the time we get there.
I don’t want to make too much light of this, but in the grand scheme of things I need to worry about amidst the swarm of stuff trying to get on my list, flu that people here aren’t realizing they have until they’ve gotten over it ranks about 400th. I guess I have a different sense of what I need to panic about these days. If it gets worse, I’ll pay attention. If the hospital makes me wear a hazmat suit to the delivery room, whatever.
If they don’t let the J-Man see him on neutral turf before this wrinkly, screaming kid shows up at the house, we’re going to have a problem. If they cancel school, I’m reopening it myself. All the kids can wear Space Bags if they have to. Those bags aren’t useful for anything else.
But anyway, if you start wondering whether you need to worry about the Bacon Bug, go here and see. And remember, cough into your sleeve, but keep eating lots of bacon.
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This may be the most bizarre toy behavior I’ve ever seen.
The J-Man usually picks a couple of letters or numbers to be his favorite for a given length of time (for a day or two, most of the time). Recently, he settled on two particular numbers while playing with his LeapFrog Clickstart keyboard. So, like many kids who perseverate on things, he’d press the buttons for those numbers many (many) times in a row. The computer/TV would say them back to him, you’d see them on the screen, and from time to time he’d say them along with it.
One of the games on it he likes is Type Time, which basically just lets you type letters and numbers as much as you want. Well, not quite as we discovered.
On the day in which I discovered this mind-boggling ‘feature’, one of those numbers was ‘7′. The other was, well… you’ll see. And you’ll see exactly what the Clickstart won’t let you do.
[This is a video of me (well, my hand at least) with the keyboard and TV both visible so you will see that I'm not making this up. You may have to bump up the volume a bit. Sorry the picture quality isn't super.]
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