welcome to kansas, ca

Today I wore my Obama shirt to the gym. As I was walking in, an old Asian man hobbled towards me and said, "Obama? No!" I said, "Actually, yes. That's who I'm voting for." He said, "You should vote for a Christian," and walked away from me. "Do your research!" I yelled after him. First of all, who cares if he's a Christian or not? Secondly, he is a goddamn Christian.

Last night, as I was putting Benjamin to bed, my Obama and No on Prop. 8 signs were stolen for the THIRD time. This time, I had stapled them high up on the palm trees outside of my house. It didn't matter. Very angry, I ran outside with my back-up Obama sign and strapped it to the palm tree with duct tape. As Ryan and I were doing so, a creepy guy up the street that lives in what we call The Gilbert Grape house muttered out his screen door something about that's what you get and something about homosexuals. I swear this is true. Ryan heard it as well. So Ryan politely asked the man to come outside and say something to his face and I yelled something about trespassing on my property. Oh, and I called him a douchebag. No response.

Using my hot glue gun, I affixed bulletin board tacks along the top of my homemade back-up No on 8 sign and planted it in my yard.

I know I'm going a little crazy now. The thing is, I can't stand looking at all of the McCain and Yes on 8 signs anymore. And I can't stand the thought of a fat-ass redneck ripping signs out of my front yard.

how to help your child communicate

From the flier they gave us at the speech pathologist's office:

Instead of saying:
"Crying againg? Give me a break! Here! Is this what you want?"

Try saying:
"Here's your juice! Yummy, yummy juice! You like juice!"

Oooohhhhhh....so I'm not supposed to yell at Elliott and shove juice in his face? I'm supposed to repeat key terms and be positive when I communicate with him? I guess I'll have to change my whole parenting philosophy around!

I know they are trying to be helpful, but they must have some very stupid people come into their office.

Still, I can't help feeling as though Ryan and I are doing something wrong to have two children who have severe speech delays. Elliott really does try to communicate but he is so far behind. We read with him, talk to him, sing with him, play with him and...he's in the 3rd percentile for communication. I try not to worry too much, but it is hard not to.

our little reverse racist

Sometimes things at home are funny and then you go out in public and realize they are embarrassing. Ben likes to call people cracker head and chocolate face when they are eating crackers or have chocolate on their faces, respectively. There are lots of other terms he uses as well. He also calls them this when he is trying to be silly and he has made lots of friends at school because other kids think he is full of hilarious jokes. So we were at the park the other day and he met two new friends and they were playing hide and seek. When I told him we had to leave, they said, "Bye, Ben-ten-igan." They were trying to be silly, referencing a popular cartoon. Ben normally would have gotten angry and said, "I'm just Ben" but with his new silly phase, he tried to throw it back at them. "Bye, Cracker Heads," he yelled across the park. Sometimes it's difficult to understand what Ben is saying. In this case, it wasn't. Everyone turned to look at us. I quickly told Ben there would be no more Cracker Head references, that sometimes people thought cracker was a bad word. "But crackers are what you eat," he told me. "Yes they are," I replied. "Only talk about them when you are eating." Later, Ryan told me that the chocolate face reference should probably go too, that it could be misinterpreted. I hadn't ever thought of it that way, and I burst out laughing.

october preview

Yo, you know you're jealous of our nose-picking, robot-making, cute-smile-generating, pumpkin lite-brighting, medal-winning, thumbs-up giving, classy black-and-white-pumpkin-guts-taking skills. So check yourself.

the great communicator...some day soon

I was so afraid for them to put Elliott under to insert tubes into his ear drums. The only horrible part was when they made him not drink any milk and tried to put a plastic hospital bracelet, and blood pressure and oxygen monitors on him, all of which promptly ripped off, all the while kicking the nurse and turning red and screaming horribly. The surgery itself went well because he was unconscious.

They did it over a week ago, and he has become a new man. He doesn't scream at random intervals (okay, he does, but usually only when he is hungry). And he is trying to talk more. Still, when went to his 18 month check-up, we discovered that, like Ben, he is behind in his speech. Very behind. But I'm not worried about him. He wants to communicate. He looks into our eyes. He babbles. He thinks that that Macho Man Randy Savage is hilarious. (Ryan has been showing him YouTube videos.) So I know that when we begin speech therapy with him next week, he will be okay because he can hear better now and he really wants us to understand him.

hey sarah palin!

ben's birthday weekend!