Please Don't Confuse Us with Anything Normal:)

    You know, there is nothing that bugs me more than when someone acts as though whatever is going on in their lives is worse than what every other human on the planet has experienced.  That is not what I am about to say here.  Let me make this perfectly clear, bunches of my friends live the their own versions of the wildness I live every day.  In fact, some of them live even wilder versions equipped with teenagers and other horrifying things like that.  So this, this is just my version of wacky, submitted for your entertainment:

All of our fourth of July fun has reminded me once again that my crew is not normal.  I am fully aware that no one is really normal.  The human status quot is sort of weird and kids are profoundly weird, however, minion weird is weirdier than most.  Take, for example, a recent cookout with dear friends of ours.  We went to their house, where there are already children, (boy children between the ages of 4 and 10,)-a certain degree of exuberant wooliness was expected.  Still, the man of the house did what all really great guys do, he was super sweet and inviting to my kids including my son.  This good deed would not go unpunished.
     Despite the fact that he looks incredibly typical, my little man has reactive attachment disorder.  There are tons of technical explanations for this disorder but suffice to say for our purposes, it basically predisposes him to actively push the buttons of anyone he likes.  So, if you meet my kiddos in a public place where there is lots to make Conner nervous, you are safe, but if you allow him to feel comfortable, look out!!!  Case in point, Conner looked my friends husband directly in the eye and blasted him with a water gun, a super soaker actually.  The guy asked him not to do it again and was very cool about it.  (If he had acted angry, Conner would have continued, by the way, ask my stepfather and brother.)  The man came in with a sort of awed combination of disbelief and respect for his boldness  in his voice as he told my friend and I what happened.  I apologized and was sincere but what I really thought was-of course he did!!!  True, most first time guests in the homes of people do not, without provocation, look adults in the face and nonchalantly blast them with water guns completely free of the expectation of a consequence, but we do-that's our normal. (IN MY OWN DEFENSE, THE LACK OF EXPECTATION OF CONSEQUENCE IS NOT BECAUSE WE DON'T PROVIDE CONSEQUENCES BUT BECAUSE KIDS WITH FASD DON'T REALLY UNDERSTAND CONSEQUENCES SO THEY DON'T ANTICIPATE THEM.)

     Still thinking this doesn't seem all that unusual to you?  Sit still, I have more.  My four year old is a picky eater--go ahead, get it out of your system, what four year old isn't a picky eater?  Well, my four year old went 2 months this year where she ate nothing but condiments.  Specifically, she ate salsa and spicy mustard.  Occasionally, I was able to convince her to eat them on a chip or vegetable but mostly she ate them with a spoon.  And yes, I put them away in a locked fridge and tried not to let her have anything else and...she lost weight.  That's right, I know how to get normal kids to eat a variety of foods, keep introducing them, don't make it a war, limit junkie options-CHECK, got it, used to be my job.  But with my kiddo, she literally just goes without.  She really doesn't enjoy eating all that much anyway, it slows her down so she'll happily just not eat. I am guessing that she would do this until she was hospitalized. 
    Currently, she is obsessed with individually packaged processed cheese product(some folks call these things American cheese slices, she calls them square cheese, I call them ingredients.)  The thought of eating this fake cheese literally makes me ill but she is eating it by the pound.  Oddly, if she eats this cheese, she will eat other food as well right now.  However, she also will eat this cheese until it is gone.  Buy one package, she eats it all.  Buy two packages, she eats them both.  Buy no packages, she eats nothing.  Perhaps, I should also mention the object of her affection of the moment used to be her worst nightmare.  In her little picky eater group at Cardinal Hill she constantly asked the therapist if they would have to eat cheese.  She'd spit it out, she'd hide it. 
    In fact, she has no foods that she always eats.  She has gone through her whole life being alternately obsessed with and terrified by different foods.  There is no rhyme or reason, no guide book-it's not normal.
     Then there is Isaac, sweet little Isaac.  When I say little, I really mean it.  Isaac is three and weighs about 25 pounds.  He's tiny and looks like a baby.  However, he is devilishly intelligent and mischievous.  For instance, the fact that he cannot walk does not impede his scaling our built in book shelves or doing somersaults off of the furniture in some mad combination of Eval Knievel and Cirque De Soleil and cracking up as the adults surrounding him stroke out when he lands safely at the bottom.  Needless to say, he requires correction frequently, especially in public where he finds an ever available audience looking at him because he is a stunning, hurt-your-eyes version of beautiful.  The result is his mother, in effort to treat him like the intelligent young man that he is, getting terrible looks of disdain for fussing at what people assume to be an innocent infant.  Look away folks, we're not normal.
    Finally, there is my Laura-Liz.  Our only biological child, as of yet developing neurotypically, yet in no way normal.  You see, she was born to two no where near normal parents.  Her father is pathologically shy and bookish-(Think Howard Hughes with shorter finger and toenails) and her mother is outgoing to a fault (Think Debbie Reynold's as Deborah Messing's mother on Will and Grace.)  The result is this child who is obsessed with facts of all kinds, verbal well beyond both her years and ability to reason, and with an undeniable urge to share her every thought with the world.  At our family July 4 party, she would pin down family members telling them stories and forcing them to rate them on a scale of 1-7 (Why, I don't know, she's not normal?) Her cousins actually asked me how much Animal Planet she watches because she was filling them in on roughly everything she had ever heard or read about animals in her life.
     So you see folks, it is important for you to know that if you are thinking of spending time with the DeZarns, you can expect entertainment.  Laughs, hugs, new bits of information, non-stop action--that's us, that is all us.  However, if you are looking for normal, look elsewhere, we are fresh out:)

PS This post was edited under the duress of constant Minion interruption, please excuse weird phrasing and and grammar that may have resulting