Meet My Family (100 things, part 6)

When I get comments and emails expressing sympathy for something in my life, I often like to milk it for all it's worth make sure that I provide updates.  My aloe plant is now just a little stump, but my sunburn is much better.  I still look like I'm wearing a red t-shirt, but it no longer hurts to raise my arms.  That's progress I guess!  But out of curiosity - does it make me a bad mother that, when Prince #2 woke up this morning crying because HIS sunburn got twice as bad overnight, that I danced a little jig because it meant we could skip the pool today? (He's much better now..it's amazing the healing power contained in a pan of freshly-made brownies!)

Anyway - back to business...

I present the next installment in the Series That Never Fucking Ends "100 Things About Me"

10 Things About my Husband and Kids 

1. Brad has a degree in Mechanical Engineering from BigBasketballCatholicUniversity....and is a retail manager.  He got a job stocking shelves right after graduation to have an income while he looked for a "real job".  The problem?  He decided that he really didn't want to go in to Engineering.  Soon he was asked to enter the Management Training Program and has been in retail ever since.  He switched companies about 4 years ago to a much larger and more stable company and loves his current job.  People have asked me if it bothers me that he is "just" a retail manager.  Those people can kiss my ass.  My husband works his very-cute-butt off for his family and will do whatever he has to do in order to provide for his family while keeping me home with the kids.
2. So now that I've made Brad out to be this wonderful man/great provider/saint, let me tell you that it pisses me off that he seems incapable of pronouncing the letter "K" when it is in the middle or end of a word....he eats "brexfast" and "axes" me questions all the time.
3. I am also the envy of many of my neighbors because of him.  While other husbands come home from work and flop on the sofa or refuse to help with the kids, Brad comes in, gets changed and plays with the kids so that I can get stuff done.  He is completely whipped truly believes that I am working all day as well and always gives me a break as soon as he gets home.
4. Prince #1 has Autism.  I don't talk about it often because he is high-functioning (thanks to a WHOLE lot of therapies that he gets 4 times per week).   In 4 years he has gone from a boy who used to throw such fits that I ended up with a bloody nose at least once a day and only communicated in sign language, to a fully-integrated-in-to-the-public-school-system little boy who just has some "quirks".  Luckily we have a fabulous school system and they provide all of his services and solicit my input on every step of his education (which actually gets annoying after a while)
5. Prince #1 has an extremely high tolerance for pain and will never complain.  Because of this, I often won't realize that he has an (all-to-frequent-but-not-frequent-enough-for-tubes) ear infection until the puss is running out of his ear.
6. Prince #1 is a genius.  I don't say that in a "my child's shit smells like a botanical garden" way.  I say that because he has been spelling and doing math problems since he was 1-year old.  When he was 4 years old and out playing with chalk, he was writing out and solving math problems in the street while other kids were drawing pictures of flowers.  He plays piano by ear (and not just "mary had a little lamb"...he has taught himself songs by Queen and Foreigner, just by hearing them on my iPod).  If he wasn't so socially stunted, he would easily be able to skip two grades.  This isn't me puffing up my kid, this is the 3-times-per-year discussion I have with his teachers and therapists (they actually recommended having him skip a year or two....I declined because of the social issues)
7. Prince #2 is both my "cuddle bunny" and my "drama queen".  I haven't yet decided if he is suffering from serious middle-child-syndrome, if he is just a master manipulator, or both.  One of his favorite things to do these days is to let me know, while I am yelling at Prince #1 for some infraction, that he certainly didn't do that horrible thing!
8. Prince # 2 has absolutely no concept of time.  Ask him when he went to InfernoBoy's house, for example (they're now best friends) and he will tell you it was last Tuesday...even if it was that morning.  He loves to tell me "Mommy - I love you forever, and sometimes on Tuesdays!"
9. The Queen loves to clean.  Hand her a paper towel and she starts dusting everything in sight.  I'm thinking that this is really going to come in handy in a few years.
10. The Queen put to rest any residual doubts I may have had on that "nature vs. nurture" argument.  Sure, she wore a bunch of pink when she was a baby...but she also ran around in a grey "I'm the Big Brother" t-shirt.  And yet she has no interest in boy-stuff.  She's all girl, complete with her own shoe fetish!

Shit - do I really have four more of these installments left?