VOTING!

Thank you for allowing me the delay in voting. I'm still pretty annoyed about Sissy's latest ruse and was in no place to say or do anything reasonable yesterday.

edit: ok, I had this entire post written and was previewing for errors,etc. when the cell phone rang.  The principal at the school (knees knocking - what now?!?) and she says, "good news!  all the teachers have voted and we are so happy to have nominated Sissy to be Santa's Helper on Saturday at the breakfast with Santa!!!"  *puke, hurl, gag, choke on my coffee*  I was a good girl. I responded correctly.  "I'm sorry.  Sissy will not be able to do that.  She is on respite every weekend with a foster family."

"Oh, we know.  Sissy told us that already.  So I'm going to have her be my helper on Monday next week.  She'll get to stuff all the envelopes with the pictures of the children with Santa." 

good.  i hope she sees the picture of WG and gets jealous  "How nice."  *roll eyes*  great.  So she will be thinking "hooray, I still get it even though I'm a little bugger!!!" and I'll get the hell storm of RAD behaviors for it.  Effin' brilliant

"We're all so proud of her and we were so glad to give her this opportunity!  See? A GOOD phone call for a change."

"Thank you" *click. hurl. scream. gnash teeth. shout out loud to my empty house, "yeah, did she tell you she faked wanting to kill herself just to get us all the *bleep* up?!?! If you knew that would you still have nominated the *bleep bleep bleep bleep?!?!?!?*

Grand effin'tastic.

*end rant*

First, photo proof of my son's ASD. This is an example of the strange and unusual obsessions for someone with ASD. I shall call this one:

The Reeses Puffs must be eaten in a circle, by God!

really, don't try to convince him otherwise. It'll be an exercise in futility.

And photo proof that although Sissy will be chronologically 11 on the 31st of this month, most of the time she's not more emotionally developed than a two year old. I shall call this one:

I am an adorable pink nightmare! You can love me but it'll kill you

ENTRIES!

"My RAD does CRAZY Things!"

From my awesome cousin when she read through some of your stories:
Wow. Dang. RAD parents should be given special awards and the prettiest wings in heaven. I don't know how I would deal with any of this stuff. At least sharing stories with one another is a form of confirmation that you, the parent, are NOT the crazy one!!!! =) Praying for ALL the RAD parents out there!

I've done my best to gather all the stories. If yours is not here, let me know right away! The entries are numbered and the entrant/blogger has been removed in the hopes that it will remove bias.

To vote, simply comment with the number of the story you think is the craziest. No vote stacking! This isn't American.Idol where you can call in for your favorite singer 6000 times in one night. LOL

1. C~ is like Sissy. She has strange ideas about her clothing: how it should be worn, what "matches", what is inappropriate regarding the weather, etc. I know, all of that sounds like normal kid stuff. Except you know our RADlings, it's never "normal."

C~ got dressed for a swimming outing we all attended and emerged from her bedroom with her suit on ... inside out, the boob cups showing! Best part? She pretended she had NO idea it was wrong.

C~ is 19.

2. Last week our RAD kid was caught stealing ketchup from the school cafeteria, stirring it in her strawberry yogurt, and then eating the crazy mixture. The teacher who got to watch her was totally grossed out!

3. Hope brought home a new nail polish, purple, unopened. GB was melting down about math. While I dealt with GB, Hope was on the floor, 5ft away, looking through her book bag. When she turned around, one of her eyelids was painted purple. The first words out of her mouth? " My teacher said I couldn't go to school tomorrow unless I used her paint. " It is everyday!

4. One day I told our RAD to put his dishes in the sink and instead he chose to stand IN front of the sink holding his sticky plate screaming that he didn't know where it went. I chose to be an awesome parent and put those nice sticky dishes in a plastic bag and let him go to church holding the bag.

5. I was visiting a RAD: Not sure what she was thinking, but apparently didn't want to get "caught" having her period at my house. So instead of throwing her used napkins in the trashcan she placed them in ziploc baggies and then threw them behind various pieces of furniture. The moving men uncovered these gems a few months later.

6. One Saturday night, we put the girls to bed and went downstairs for a late dinner. Pretty soon, we heard someone going into our bedroom. (I don't think I need to explain that the girls aren't supposed to get up after we put them to bed and that they aren't supposed to go into our bedroom without permission...) We went upstairs to check on them, and they were hiding in our closet. When my DH shooed them out, they said, "We wanted to surprise you!" and acted hurt and defiant. Thing is, we wouldn't have gone up there for another few hours!

So the girls both became a bit belligerent, maintaining that they had done nothing wrong. Eldest started into her manic phase, laughing a strange laugh when she saw me outside her bedroom and closing the door behind her. She soon morphed into crazy roof monkey.

Long ago, she had ruined the screen on the bedroom window by removing it and putting it back one too many times, so all she had to do was open the window and crawl out. She's been told not to go on the roof, of course, but such is her need to disobey that she does it anyway. She peers into the upper window, stomps around, goes to the back of the house (which is three huge stories from the ground!) and back again, making her presence very known, before being calm enough to come back inside.

It doesn't seem to matter how cold it is outside or who might happen to see her. She just is our crazy roof monkey.

7. My Russian Rad teen was caught (second hand) with another, yes, another stolen IPodTouch. When I demanded he bring it in, of course he refused, each story about it more creative than the one before. I gave him the ultimatum to either bring it in and tell us who the "friend was that loaned it to him" so we could follow up (last story and the one he's sticking to) or I was calling his counselor at school tomorrow to report that he had a touch that did not belong to him that she might want to check into. He went off about having a snitch for a parent and he couldn't believe any parent would snitch on their own kid and that he would rather die out in his tree fort in the cold than live with a snitch for a parent. This "discussion" followed him coming in very solemnly telling his dad that he had a problem. He got a can of soda from somewhere last night, drank some of it and put it in his tree fort. He went up this morning before school (most likely to catch a smoke) and drank the soda. The can felt heavy so he cut it open with a pocket knife and found a baby mouse in the bottom. He spent the whole day at school scared to death, waiting to die. This Rad mom feels a tad bit guilty taking such delight (only because I know he's ok)in this little mishap.

8. I could tell she was going to play the 'dumb game' (what we chosen to call 'crazy' behavior) so I said I am going to pick only 4 of your 10 words and when you get these correct you can go play with your siblings. We practiced saying them, talking about how to use them, explaining all the letter sounds, writing them, defining them....totally breaking down each word and truly learning the word/letters...onto the 'quiz' portion...I say 'chase' for her to spell-she says 'chaste'-I repeat 'chase'-she says 'chast'-I repeat 'chase'-she says 'I don't know what that means, that's not one of my words' I want to scream REALLY?!?! it is one of the four words we have been talking about the last hour and you have defined it, spelled it, used it in a sentence......and now you are telling me you don't know what it means/how to say it/spell it/etc

9. She found a candycane today. I said she could have it... and give a piece to her twin. She was a very happy little munchkin. Then Big sister found a candy cane an hour later and the world came to a crashing halt because said 6 year old wanted that one, too.

Sorry. This one is for Christina. You had one already.

And suddenly she told me this grand story about her how her friend GRACE has all kinds of candy canes on her Christmas tree... and implied that Grace is allowed to eat freely...

Manipulation is not new, lying is not new, but pulling a story out of thin air to further her purpose is a wow moment for this child with language issues.

By the way, she has does not know if Grace really has a CHristmas tree or not, therefore how could she know about the candy canes?

I happen to know Gracies mom strictly restricts sugar ...

10. my 17 yo darling had a friend over recently ("friend" in the sense that this girl is exactly like her and the friends mom and I got them together specifically because we knew they'd be bff's and we could get breaks from them if we alternated houses). My dd was mad at me about something (it's always something) and went upstairs to complain about me to this new friend. My younger dd came up and said, "Jessica is telling Lyn that you and her mom are exactly the same, always making up stories and exaggerting to get them into trouble". I asked Jessica (dd17) about this and she cried pitifully that she would NEVER say such a thing and to just ask Lyn if I didn't believe her. I turned, looked at Lyn, and said, "well Lyn - did she say those things?". Lyn looks at the floor and says, "Yes, and she also said she hates you and you're not really her mother". I looked at Jessica and she yells, 'Well, I never said, I didn't say those other things!!" I said, "how in the world would those other two things be any better than the first two?" and her response was, "oh, if you knew Lyn's mom better you'd know what an insult the first two things are". Huh? Talking in circles seems to be her favorite way of making me crazy. She still maintains that she DID NOT say those things about me - why in the world would she? It's so hard to remain calm during the craziness, but my dd is so predictable in her methods. She literally goes from one maddening behavior (if she gets NO reaction from me) and on to the next. If I manage to maintain control, she can rage and sob for hours and hours

11. editor note: this blogger had several stories to share. I put all her entries in one so she didn't get extra votes but after reading this I'm thinking she might need the sympathy vote!!!

How about my son got I.S.S. for calling his teacher a "fat a$$" Really? Where did he learn that colorful language? When I asked him why he said that his response was "well she has gained weight!"

(or)

Refuses to do any chores. Literally wont budge. Family is playing and having fun but my Radish has to finish his chores. He had to sweep. Not a large area but a decent sized room. Lets not go into to why he had to sweep but I am sure you know it had NOTHING to do with him dumping sand "for fun". I gave him the brrom and asked him to sweep the area like mommy would. Meaning dont push it in a corner like RAD does. He fell out on the floor and started flopping around. He forgot how to use a broom. He goes into a tirade about how the broom is laughing at him and making his life difficult. Really? Should have recorded that one. It was pretty funny to watch.

(or)

I am at work and receive a call from the cafeteria (I despise my RAD's school). The cafeteria manager says, "Umm what mother sends her sone to school with $40.00 to buy ice cream?" I replied, "A mother that did not know her very challenging child stole from her purse again. What sort of school worker sells $40.00 worth of icecream to a child that has a record 5 miles long and it not supposed to be unattended anywhere in the school?" The cafeteria worker went silent. I continued with, "look I am not trying to be mean to you but seriously I am tired of this #1 I have a difficult child which your school seems to think has a 'made up illness', #2 who taught you how to speak on the phone? #3 My kid really does have a rap sheet 5 miles long #4 Haven't we already discussed what he can and cannot have 27 times this year alone? #5 why on earth would you let any child 8 years old buy that much ice cream #6 do you have children? "

12. On Saturday morning, our son was in the basement watching cartoons, and I sent my RADish daughter down to join him when she woke up. He came up shortly to announce she came down with two purloined Starburst and offered him one, which he refused.

When I came down to confront her, she toyed with denial, but admitted she had "thrown them away" uneaten. We had the "don't steal or I can't trust you" conversation for the Nth time. (She insisted she took them because she was hungry. Yep, everyone knows how *filling* Starburst are - just a couple and I'm stuffed!)

When we were done, I asked her to tell me which garbage can she'd thrown them in (I knew she'd eat them as soon as I was out of the room if I didn't claim them), and she pointed to the spot behind the couch where the garbage can *used* to be.... until I moved it a week ago when the in-laws were coming. I said that wasn't possible because there wasn't a can there, which she insisted "was too!" I asked her to show me, so she jumped up and pointed to it, then realized it was missing. Cue the yelling, insisting it was too there, and "put it back, now!" Because (of course!) I had managed, in the time between when she had thrown them away and when I asked to see them, to sneak in front of her and hide the can without her noticing. "You moved it just to make me mad!" Which is of course what I was thinking when I relocated it a week ago to hide the icky can from the in-laws.

Sigh...after much yelling (from her) and hugging (from me), she admitted she had tucked the empty wrappers under the couch, under her bum. Which she could have told me in the first place.


GET LAUGHING... Er, I mean VOTING!