With the autism rate unofficially now at 1 in 150 and, in my opinion, soon to be 1 in 100, I started thinking about how else we are 'handicapped'. In between breaking up fights, coercing my oldest to do some housework, changing diapers, and having a 2 minute conversation with Linda that took 4 hours, it hit me. What's the average # of kids per family? 2.3, right? Just for arguments sake, let's put numbers to the family size (stats from the 'out of thin air' website):
19%- No kids
17%- 1 kid
23%- 2 kids
21%- 3 kids
15%- 4 kids
5 %- 5 or more kids
Believe me, the last group is definitely disabled. I'm thinking of printing '1 in 20' t-shirts for all of us in that last group. Somehow we wound up in that last group. Don't know how (literally we KNOW, but figuratively we can't figure out why). As I am so found of saying, parents of 4 or more are selectively brain damaged. We forget what it is like and have another. But, I think the day is coming where we can be classified and help could be given us for this disability we suffer. Some of the classifications could include:
PDD-NOS- Purchase Diapers Daily-Never on Sale.
Monetary Apraxia- Inability to keep money in the bank
Ought-to-clean-that Spectrum Disorder- Slow changing of color of carpet based on the food and drink-stuffs being served (and spilled).
Aspringers Syndrome- Buying pain relievers in bulk.
GF CF diet- Good Food Caught Fire, we ain't eatin' good tonight
Just the general pathos of having no life should be enough to illicit some kind of fund raiser for those of us stricken with this debilitating disorder.
Example of my stream of conscienceless life:
4:45- I came up with the above idea for a blog entry, Begin typing
4:55- "Hold this", Linda says, and I begin typing with 1 hand, holding a urine sample in the other.
5:01 "Wait, Bill. I can't do this by myself, come here. I wind up with 2 urine samples, typing ceases
5:03- With Linda now 'testing' urine I am now charged to do a bath on one while monitoring the other's bubbles-in-the-sink playtime.
5:06- I now try and continue typing in the bathroom while watching two in the tub.
5:08- Give up typing in the bathroom. Too much going on, as I am also preparing dinner in the next room while older in the tub watches younger.
5:18- Pass Liv out of tub and off to Linda as she is done testing, now devote myself exclusively to supper preparation.
5:28-6:03- I serve as wait staff for 3 of the 5. Cook for all 5; Linda is waitress for the 2 GFCF patrons. No tips received...yet again.
5:41- 6:16- Wait staff squeezes in dinner
6:17-8:12- Bus staff takes over; successfully hire temp to empty dishwasher; threaten bodily harm to anyone not cleaning; household falls in and out of complete anarchy. Amazingly, two youngest are in bed.
8:13- Finally get back to blog
With proper therapy these people CAN be helped...
Bill, Linda, Aly, Jason, Dillan, Liv and Grace
PS If you don't already know, please do not be offended by my parodying of Autism, our two youngest are there on the spectrum. I invoke my poetic license to make fun of it.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
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2 comments:
Hi Bill,
Nice post.
There's no particular reason why you shouldn't make stats up out of thin air - all of the other stats seem to be open to revision.
I also can identify with that first 'classification'.
BTW, I like the 'About Me' photo. That's one of my favourite movies. I can still hear the song in my head as I'm writing this.
I originally set out to find a good shot of the knights that say NIE. This one caught my fancy because I feel like this 'woman' sometimes. That and I occasionally threaten to sell the off for medical experiments...
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