As I'm typing this, my first blog post, with my youngest snuggling happily by my feet under the desk, his hand twirling the bottom cuff of my pant leg in a bedtime ritual that is soothing to both mom and baby, it seems apropos to begin with a bedtime story.
Once upon a time there was this really interesting guy named Bruce. He fell in love with a quirky gal known far and wide as Liz. After a short but very sweet courtship and engagement, marriage vows ensued, followed by five sweet and wonderfully fascinating offspring we like to call our kids.
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We LIKE to call them our kids, but in my family that could lead to some heated debate. As all good nerdy-nerds know "kids", after all, are technically baby goats. Being precise and saying what you mean is practically an Olympic sport in these parts, so you'd better be ready to defend your meaning if you don't want to end up wading through a massive digression to get back to what you were trying to say as you defend your choice of syntax and vocabulary...
But I digress.
Our kids have taken us on an amazing and terrifying - amazingly terrifying? - journey.
And 2015 has been no exception. In fact it has been quite the landmark year of important discovery for my family. For example, my husband and I have discovered that watching our favorite 80's movies with our kids is a pretty serious letdown, given their bewildered and bored expressions. But more importantly, our family of seven now has 5 clinically diagnosed ADD individuals.
What does that mean anyway...that we're all quirky, related and bored? And what are we supposed to do now? Do we medicate, invest in "Big Oil" (I love my peppermint oil...what else have they got lurking in that pungent bag of theirs?), eat everything whole like the Europeans do (Swiss chocolate, anyone?) or do we shrug our shoulders and just run with it, maybe applying "a little trick here" and "a little Toblerone there"?
And what about the remaining two who so far have not been diagnosed? I would be surprised if the baby escapes a diagnosis, given his behavior thus far. So will my daughter go back to the doctor next week and come back with another Paulin family ADD diagnosis? If she isn't will she then feel like the black, no wait, the WHITE sheep of the family? What DOES not fitting in with ADD people look like and how does one rebel, if need be? Maybe she'll grow up and write a documentary about her experience, calling it "Driven to not fly off into a tangent during a conversation".
Poor kid.
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