Kids are everything. I understand kids, it is adults that I don't, lol. My husband was great with kids so together we were so compatible. I started being a clown in my house when my kids were so very small. My youngest said once to his friend and I overheard this, " you will LOVE my mom, she is great, she never yells like YOUR mom, MY mom is FUNNY!" I put skits on in the house, they would come home from school and find, Carol Burnette mopping the floor and handing them cookies. Next time, I would be something else. We would sit and have our cookies, and laugh and talk when they came home. I worked, but I was still a stay at home mom, too. I found the way to mix both and make them work.
It spilled over into the school at their assemblies. Together with a man who rode a unicycle, I juggled, and entertained the kids. I tutored in the classrooms fine and gross motor and found teaching them to juggle was a GREAT way to teach gross motor along, with eye coordination. I wrote a paper which has been published only a zillion times on this. It was a fluke I turned it into something for the good for the kids!
As a fluke with kids with special needs, years ago, wow, I am getting old... YES! (it is a GOOD thing) that putting on an old beat up record player enabled autistic kids to make eye contact. Eye contact is just about everything... I did a paper on this, music therapy, and it was published and it changed so much for those kids with special needs. It was just a fluke.
I was watching them rocking, banging their heads on the walls, and it all stopped when I put on, ( you will never believe this) rock and roll. WHO says Rock and roll is bad for you? With the music going I could squat down beneath them and little by little enabled them to look into my eyes, Lordy lordy, getting their attention! I was thrilled for these kids. It helped them. But when I had a mother who wouldn't listen to me, doing something I told her wasn't kosher for her son John, age 21, which threw him into a gran mal and he died in my arms, I left special needs edu. I loved John. So, I moved on, but always working with kids.
The hospitals asked me to talk to newly dx'd big C patients of all ages. I did this for well, still doing it, 9 years maybe. But, it eats at your soul and hurts at time. I want to make everyone well and happy. The Admin from the hospital called once said, " we got a man here taking it hard, he is a personal friend can you come?" I did. He was my age and just like the admin said. He looked at me saying, " how would you know what it is like to have testicular cancer?" I looked at him, saying... well, I have been fighting this crap a long time, and had to grow bigger balls than you got! And, trust me, they don't fit in my Victoria secret underwear."
He was fine... He laughed! I hear from him time to time; and the admin asked me to put things on for the kids. So, I do 4 hospitals, including the VA. I enlisted the aid of 2 friends whom I sat in the pink chair with enough of times. We are just ordinary people who know what it is like to be us.
And, we hate it when we see kids sick.
Their is nothing normal in my life, never will be, so I might as well go with flow and be eccentric when I grow up. I want a Mr. Bean car. I can't believe you shipped that car around like you did, that is wild. I once had a friend who drove a VW from Germany and I think the wheel was on the wrong side. Like Ian's car I am sure.