The Vile Olympics*

In Which Jo Neither Receives Nor Desires to Receive a Gold Medal.

Today's Events:
Shower Wrestling. Only one participant is naked, although the warm up exercises can include a thorough work out getting the main character undressed. Extra points given for drenching the judge.
Little Man's score for this event today: 9 on a scale of 10. He lost a point due to no throwing of formula because he refused to drink it! He is working on placing and winning this week.
100 Yard Bus Dash: Involved much hollering on the part of the judges, because the main participant was almost disqualified from this event by way of almost missing the bus. Points: 9 out of 10, because he had both parents yelling at him to HURRY UP, you are going to miss the bus, plus the added fun of trying to hurry a child who is yelling at you and trying to scratch you. An exciting event every day, but always leaves the judges worried that one of them is going to drop dead from either a heart attack or frustration.
The Telephone Relay: A required event for all parents. Points:5 out of 10. I only made 5 phone calls and only was requested to participate in one phone tree. Press 1 if you know which party you are calling. Press 2 if you are stupid. Press 3 if you wish to have a samurai warrior come to your house and lop off your head. I chose 3.
Other events are being covered by another reporter in the field.
Liza


*Unlike other sports, participation in the Vile Olympics is not voluntary. In fact a certain amount of hand wringing, bemoaning the fates and cursing your karma are a required part of your involuntary servitude.

Upcoming Attractions

The Vile Olympics.
Watch out for the THRILLS, SPILLS, the screams of defeat and the writhing and wretched moaning of the defeated.

The Peepage.
Oh the laughter, the bad fun, the pants peeing, and the very, very naughty peeps and the people behind the peeps!

The Agony and The Ecstasy.
Well okay, just the agony of Poor, Pitiful Jo's feet!

It is LOVE! It is blisters! It is BLOOD! It is SINFUL! It is geeks in the Big City. Are you looking for embarrassment? Sex? Lies? Whores of the Dino kind? Laughter? Sorrow and an excess of tears?

Coming Soon to a Blog near you!

Notes to Self

1. Be 20 years younger than the dominant age group if you are going on a walking tour of ANY large city.
2. Remind self the younger generation does not approve of public embarrassment in the form of saying loudly "Look at that guy, he's hot, Hi, how are you??" directly to aforementioned young man.
3.Bring wheelchair
4.Forget trying to convince the drinking members of the group they are entirely too chatty and silly after a couple of drinks. They will dismiss your teetotalling opinions and accuse you of being too straightlaced and horrified to have a valid opinion.
5.Objects bought early in the day become at least 10 times heavier by the end of the day once they have been toted all over town.
6.Never let Eliza convince you that going to the Washington Monument first is a great idea when the Museum of the American Indian lies not just in the opposite direction but approximately twice as far away as the distance from the earth to the moon.
7. Bring a net so when Eliza is bouncing happily around like a rabbit on amphetamines you can do something about it.
8.Remind yourself that when you were twenty something you too were slimmer and more energetic.
9.Rent wheelchair if you forgot to bring one.
10. Little people are infinitely darling when they are not your own
11.People who own no children might not enjoy you stopping and cooing at every cute baby you see on the mall in Washington D.C.
12.Giving the White House, i.e. Bush the finger is INCREDIBLY satisfying even if you are Mormon.
13.Laughter multiplied by three is the best laughs of all.

BTW? I love Eliza, enough to make her my second wife. BUT, the Patriarch is my new best friend. He left his laptop here so Eliza and I are not trying to be patient when the other one is on her puter.

Doolittleville

New York, at the least the airport part was great! The people were all very nice and very friendly. The best part? All the diversity! I loved seeing all different kinds of people. Utah can be rather a vanilla place to be. There was a small problem with me just a tad bit late for the connecting flight from NYC to Doolittleville, but the crew was gracious enough to open the door for me and let me in the plane. How embarrassing... I was tired from traveling all night, but so excited to meet Eliza and her animals. She was thinner and very pretty than the idea I had in my head. That doesn't sound right. It is not that I thought she was ugly, but she is just.. oh never mind. Skinny, pretty, let's leave it at that. She is just as snarky in real life as she is in the cyber world. We are just having fun hanging out with Redzils and Me and Liza. The Medium Animal has taken to calling me, "this one". 'I don't want you mommy, I want this one". Pointing at me. Liza smirks as I get off my butt and do the grandma thing with the Animal. Cute, very cute animals. Noisy, very, very noisy animals. Busy, busy, very, very busy animals. Kind of like my house, only there are more of them!
We haven't had any bad fun yet. Well the Smallest Animal had bad fun whilst I was supposed to be watching thon, but I was helping thon's sibling, and had my back turned. Yah. Bad fun. Liza mocked me for that one. The Animals are napping and the plan is after eating we will have bad fun.
All is well at home. JJ's medical state continues to be stable and he is actually pretty repentant about the stupidity that went with the seizure. Little Man? Out of sight, out of mind with that little guy. Bald Man seems to be doing a great job holding down the fort. Thanks sweetie.
That is all for now, but you can look forward to the Adventures of Jo and Eliza in the Big City! And the one about Redzils, Jo and Eliza and the Bad Fun Gang.
P.S. I left my digital camera at home! ARGH, I could kick myself. I will be buying a cheap one for the trip I guess. Drat.

Leavin' on a Jet Plane....

Hey Peeps! I am in NYC! Can you believe it? I have some hours to kill while awaiting my flight to Doolittleville. Kind of a weird round about way to get there, but hey! I flew with a service I had never used before. I was impressed. Direct TV! More leg room! Eye covers and ear plugs! Slept a bit, not enough, I am just hoping between the adrenlaline and caffeine ingested by way of Mountain Dew I will be exciting company for the Doolittle crew.
Last time I was in NY, I was five and we were flying home from a tour in Italy courtesy of the Army.
Love you all and Liza and I will keep you updated on all our bad fun.

Update

I am very, very tired. Didn't get to bed until after one last night and up again by seven to get Little Man off to school. I showered and went to the hospital to see how JJ was doing. He as awake, thank goodness and pretty lucid. He is still have some residual effects from the seizure, but overall not doing too bad. He is obviously in big trouble from being caught drunk, but we don't have to deal with that for a while. Because he is medically stable and not in the hospital anymore, I am not going to postpone my trip to visit Doolittleville. I guess I would feel a bit differently if it were purely medical, but because it is also him being a stupid teen, I don't want to give him the idea he can act up and make us just change our lives for him.
Thank you, thank you for your kind words. You have no idea how much better they made me feel. Less alone, less stupid, less of feeling like a bad parent. I needed all of it. Tonight, I am going to bed early! I need to be well rested for my teetotally kind of Bad Fun with Liza!

Suckitude

I am at the ER with JJ. Still waiting to talk to the doctor but the information we have is that he was DRINKING with his "friends" and had a seizure. He will need a CT or MRI to determine if the mass is still stable or not. We will go from there. Sometimes it seems like my little family can't catch a break. Keep us in your prayers/good thoughts. We need them.

Update: They had already done the scan. No change w/ the cyst. Seems as though my beloved child is just plain drunk and post ictial from the seizure. Now I can just be really angry and a little worried. Crap.

Tomorrows

Today, I was driving to get the Princess and the Pea, I saw a man, probably about 60, sitting on a small grassy hill with a partially unrolled sleeping bag, and a plastic box filled with things. He was sitting with his back towards me, rocking back and forth.
I cried for all the fear of tomorrow and my sweet boy. What will the future bring for him? How do people end up like that? Where is this man's family? Is his mama crying for him in heaven because she isn't there to take care of him anymore? I am crying again, my throat just hurts from the huge lump in it. Please God, tell me my boy will be okay and someone will always love him, I can't bear to think of anything else.
As he gets older and he gets physically bigger and harder to manage, my hugest fear is that there will come a time when he can't live with us anymore. And God forgive me, I have prayed that he would be taken before that day ever comes. I just don't think I could handle it.

Devils and Angels

Bald Man is at work, it is almost 12:30 here and I am, as of yet, unable to shower, so I am still in my jammies. Little Man is being incessant, so I must attend to every whim, lest there be a price higher than I am willing to pay foisted on me. A price that might include something high priced being broken, like say a DVD player, or the Playstation... or just messy, like the time he shredded a used diaper and it looked like a snowfall in his room. But instead of pretty white snowflakes, we got thousands of fingernail sized pieces of yellow, (yes YELLOW! I said it was used)shredded diaper insides scattered all over his room. Oh and don't forget the bad fun with paint. So being smelly in my nightgown seems like the road I would be happier choosing in the long run.
But that means you are stuck with me for now! The computer is right next to where he is playing the Playstation, (Spyro) so I can keep on eye on him.
As Liza alluded to yesterday, Little Man had an appointment with the lab at the Big City Children's Place for Sickos and I was assuming I had an appointment with the devil himself. Remember last summer? Remember the Lab visit from hell?? I am so traumatized from the whole thing I just drive myself crazy anticipating the very worst. Makes me think instead of giving Little Man his calm down drug, I should take it myself*. That way, no matter what happens, I wouldn't care.
Much to my surprise, Little Man was utterly perfect and completely well behaved. Not just well behaved for an autistic child with a very limited IQ, but well behaved for the brightest and easy going-est child ever. I have heard you can be possessed by demons, is it possible to be possessed by an angel? Whatever magic happened, I am forever grateful. Even the lab tech, who was a gem, went on and on about what a good kid he was and how she wished all the patients were that good!!! What???
I drove home, marvelling at whatever karma, planets lining up, prayers answered had happened. Pulled up into my parking spot and guess what? Little Man's regular self showed up. There was much screaming, name calling and throwing of objects. (HIM of course, not me!) He even nailed Bald Man with his shoe. And this behavior continued until he finally fell asleep. So whatever good spirits possessed my son's body for those three hours left. I hope they come back soon, I really enjoyed them.

*This is of course me joking, I would never take a medicine prescribed for my son, in case anyone is thinking anything else!

Yay!!!

Oh I am so excited I can't hardly think of anything else! Guess what I am going to be doing exactly a week from today? Nope, not that... nope, not that either.
Okay, I will help you out.
I am going to go visit our ever exciting and wonderful Ms.Doolittle in the wonderful town of Doolittleville. We are even planning a side trip to D.C. to see the Smithsonian! You have no idea how very much I have always, always wanted to see that place. I want to fall down and faint in an fit of ecstasy. Instead I will copy some nice autistic behaviors that have been modeled for me and hop from foot to foot while flapping my hands with joy. My mother tells me she will disown me if I don't visit this place, so I am sure Eliza will tolerate gladly being dragged accompany me for some flapping viewing of the exhibits.
Whoo hoo! Stay tuned for the Amazing Adventures in Bad Fun with Jo and Liza!

Mountain Monday!

Usually Mondays are my very favorite day of the week, and I fully expected today to be extraordinary since I had had Little Man home for the last week and half. Uh yeah, not so much. Princess had a job interview and didn't have her cell phone on her, so I ended up with the Pea from 10:30 until 4 this afternoon. So my Monday did not even come close to meeting any of my happy expectations. I am quickly posting this, because Little Man will be home in less than an hour and that will be the end of that. Don't forget to add the fact of my dryer giving up the ghost yesterday. Yah know, this week isn't looking so hot. I am really hoping tomorrow will be much better. I am still a bit tired, but not nearly as tired as I was on Sat.
First, the egg story and then I will leave you with the usual Monday fun pictures.
We had a formal luncheon after the wedding and they served us these spinach salads that had straw like mushrooms, cherry tomatoes and two hard boiled egg slices. Little Man is allergic to eggs. But that has never stopped his fascination for that which he is not allowed to have. We have to watch him, or he will be in the fridge breaking eggs whenever he gets a chance.
I scooped those eggs slices off his plate and ate them. He mournfully looked for his eggs under the spinach leaves, saying all the while, "you ate my beautiful eggs, I wanted those eggs, I like eggs, why did you eat my eggs, where did my eggs go?" I am not kidding you that he did not stop about the &$%# eggs for the ENTIRE lunch. I was ready to strangle the child, but sitting in the front at the table of honor meant I was being watched, so I just kept hissing at him through my teeth to BE QUIET or I was going to get very angry. Didn't help a bit, but it helped me let off a bit of steam. Eggs... humph!
And now, Mountain Monday!!!



A picture from opening presents on Saturday with the happy couple:



And a very cute picture of the Pea from Easter Sunday: Note the circled area. Cause? A nap!

The Wedding

I am sooooo tired. Yesterday was wonderful. No major problems and everyone* (with one exception) was wonderful. No dramas at all. We love our new son in law and his family is just super. So many friends and family came, that when we left, in spite of being very tired and sore, we felt completely wrapped in love and caring. Wow. It was just an incredible day. Beautiful bride, handsome groom, what more can I say? I will let this small slideshow give you an idea. More about the whole wedding when I am not too tired to breathe!

*The exception being Little Man of course, who was absolutely beside himself and was horrid, horrid, horrid. I tried so hard to be patient, but felt as though I failed miserably. Remind me to tell you about the eggs later....

Happy Birthday

to ME! It's my birthday and we are just too busy with the wedding to do much about it. Bald Man and I will do something next week when things have calmed down.
I will leave you with a picture of my cuteness when I was a young'un.

Thank you to my mom for giving me my birthday and for being such wonderful role model and honestly? She is my hero.

Mountain Monday with some Whine

Ahhh!!! Crazy, it is crazy here. Little Man meltdowns, me with a tummy bug on sat, grumpy older children, insane cleanng and to top it all off, Little Man has this week, (why this week of all weeks???) off for Spring Break. So here I am, on Monday trying to get some stuff done and being thwarted by a needy and messy kid. I was trying to finish up the steam cleaning on the carpet that had one more spot to get done, and whilst I did that, Little Man dismantled my vaccumm cleaner, got a hold of blue glue stick and spread it all over his room and the bathroom and PEED all over the clean toilet and floor. It is only noon here! I am not showered yet and I won't be until I can find some way to occupy the boy without him wreaking havoc on the apartment. His bedroom is beyond any amount of messy and has entered into a place of almost complete entropy. We will not be cleaning it until tonight. I still have a rat cage, the master bath to scrub and master bedroom. Makes me tired thinking about it.
Brown Boy arrives tomorrow, his side of the family the day after and I have still more wedding prep than I want to think about.
But in spite of all the insanity and the late snow, spring continues to bloom in my little corner of the world. The weather forecast for Friday is in the 70's and the Salt Lake Temple grounds are in full spring bloom. The view from my balcony continues to delight me on a daily basis and I think you will enjoy it too.









And a helping of my little Pea for the yummy topping:



I have no idea if I will have any time for blogging this week, so I will catch you when I can...