Evel's Dad Has Crawled Out From Under His Rock Again

Well I called it. I got a letter from Perry County Domestic Relations that Evel's dad filed requesting termination or decrease in Evel's support order. *yawn* It's almost not even worth bitching about anymore (I said almost).

This dipshit is still over $2000 in arrears because he didn't pay his support for over a year and I'm sure he knows that he won't be getting an income tax return again this year so he figured he'd give it another shot before tax time. Maybe he thinks I'll have a change of heart and relieve him of his financial duties. Maybe he doesn't know who he's dealing with.

If you're not even going to see your son, you're sure as hell going to remember that he exists somehow. I'm sure Evel thinks about not having his real dad in his life everyday so kiss my big, white ass. The only way I will ever terminate the order is if Evel himself decides that he wants Big Daddy to legally adopt him. Until then, you're SOL. This is the bed that you've made for yourself. Get comfy because you're going to be in it for another seven years.

I just don't see how someone can walk away from their child like that. I'm all about having a life separate from my kids so I don't go insane, but I could not imagine not seeing them for 8 years. I (usually) miss the little tikers after a nice, relaxing, yet invigorating, weekend. With Tink's custody arrangement, she's gone for a week at a time if it's not our weekend and that about kills Big Daddy. I'm just thankful that he's here to support Evel (emotionally and financially) while Evel's father is off being a waste of life. Any guy can make a baby but it takes a man to raise a child, especially someone elses.

Nutt's Big Debut on MSAD

I'm a little late with this one, but Monday, January 24, 2011 was the first ever Moebius Syndrome Awareness Day. On Tuesday, the local paper ran an article about Nutt and how Moebius Syndrome has affected him and our family. I was really happy with how it turned out. The writer represented everything and everyone accurately (except she said that I got emotional. I do not have emotions. I am a rock).

So now you know Nutt's and our real names. Woo! But this is something that I want to educate EVERYONE about and if I must reveal our secret identities, then so be it. If this blog gets even one more person to check out even one of the Moebius websites, then that's one more person that knows the challenges that people with Moebius Syndrome face every single day.

There was also an article about him in the Winter edition of Capabilities e-zine:
 Capabilities/Central Penn Parent Article on Moebius Syndrome and Nutt

And I must say that I am extremely happy with the amount of people that showed their support for the Moebius Syndrome community on the first EVER Moebius Syndrome Awareness Day (1/24/11), whether it was by wearing purple, handing out fliers or even something as simple as adding a MS twibbon to your facebook profile picture. Thank you all so much!

Here are a few articles that also celebrated MSAD:
Doctors Closer to Helping Flintshire Boy Who Can't Smile
Chloe's Story (She's SUCH a cutie pie!)
Attack of the Redneck Mommy: Beautiful Babies, Ugly Adults (funny, but a tear jerker in the same)
Cassie's Story
Kerri-Anne: MSN-AU Video about Jack's Smile That He Wears on the Inside
Kelsey's Story (with video)

I'm sure there are more that I missed.
Here are the photo galleries from MSAD:
MSAD Gallery 1
MSAD Gallery 2
MSAD Gallery 3
MSAD Gallery 4

So as you can see, it was a pretty festive day. We didn't really do much as far as going out, but I think my campaign to drive my friends and family nuts on Facebook worked out fairly well to spread awareness. I'm also glad I remembered to make the twibbon that I wanted to make weeks ago. Hard to believe that I would procrastinate on something...

For more information on Moebius Syndrome or to connect with our community, please follow the links below:
The Moebius Syndrome Foundation
The Many Faces of Moebius Syndrome
The Moebius Research Trust
Moebius Friends Facebook Group
January 24th For Moebius Syndrome Cause Page on Facebook
Still I Can't Be Silent (A blog by Natalie Abott, who has Moebius Syndrome
Moebius Musings (A blog by Kevin Smant, diagnosed with Moebius Syndrome)
Moebius Syndrome and the Medical Maze (A blog by Emily Calhoon, mother to a child with Moebius)

Taco Shanks

If you've have ever watched Lockdown or had a family member (or five or six) in jail, you know what a shank is. For the rest of you (all of which do not live in my neck of the woods), a shank is a crude tool that is made by prisoners for the express purpose of stabbing or slashing another inmate. This term resulted in my favorite expression to yell at ass clown drivers -- "I will shank you in the neck." Basically, the inmates file down any object that can be made into a point and wrap something around the handle of the object for better grip and so they don't hurt their little hands when that use it to skewer their cellmate like a pig.  They use things like plastic toothbrushes, screws out of their beds and pieces of metal from their toilets.

But a taco shell? Really? Evel swears that this is the reason that they are only given soft shell tacos in his middle school (I highly doubt it, but it makes a good subject for a blog).

I guess it could make sense. I've pulled some ancient hard taco shells out of my cupboard and impaled the roof of my mouth on the first bite at dinner, but I could only imagine the school safety team meeting to discuss the possible dangers:

"Let's bring this meeting to order. First on the agenda, the recent outbreak of stabbings in the lunchroom. Seems kids are breaking their taco shells into pieces and filing them down on their rock hard dinner rolls to exact revenge on the rival tether ball team. Just last week, star player Billy Marshall had to leave the team due to a taco shell inflicted stab wound on his punching hand. All in favor of banning hard taco shells?"

Now I can see getting rid of metal forks (which my son's school still has) or the hard melamine plastic lunch trays (I saw a girl use one in a fight my sophomore year in high school. It looked like it did some damage), but food related violence? The only food related violence is what is inflicted upon the poor children that have to eat that slop. What is next, banning pizza wedges because they have a point or doing away with fruit cocktail because...well, I'll let you use you figure that one out (*snicker, snicker*)?

So after a good ten minutes of pressing Evel for the deets on what color school issued prison jumpsuits I'll have to order for him and Tinkerbell next year, he finally broke and told us that a kid was eating a taco and got stabbed IN THE ROOF OF HIS MOUTH (I totally called it back in paragraph three). Ahhhh, I see said the blind man. All of the pieces of the puzzle were falling into place. I think I have a little story teller on my hands. Where he gets that from, I'll honestly never know...

He Didn't Even Need A Triple Dog Dare

No, he didn't talk back and get what was coming to him.

My little genius decided he was going to see (after numerous warnings from his mom and dad) what happened when he stuck his tongue to a frozen metal pole.

* Please see Exhibit A at the top of the note*

We were at my youngest sister's 13th birthday, having a good time. I was trying to fix a bottle for my youngest son when a mob of teenage girls came rushing inside and began shrieking at levels only heard by cats and dogs that Evel had stuck his tongue to a frozen pole. Then in came my son. Bleeding.

My first reaction? "Evel...Seriously?" (insert eye roll and deep sigh) "Someone get my camera."

Not that I wasn't concerned about the fountain of blood running out of his mouth (and onto the floor of the RENTED party hall that we were in), but after 11 years I've (sadly) come to expect things like this from my son. I'm sure if you have a boy around this age or that has ever been this age, you know what I am talking about. You just reach a point where all you can do is throw up your hands and pray that they make it to adulthood with only minor dents and dings. Plus, stupidity seems to be entwined with the male DNA on my side of the family so he was destined to seek out the activities that can cause maximum damage in minimum time.

When asked why he thought it would be a good idea to try this despite the various warnings from adults (Pappy tried it when he was little and I used to stick my tongue my Nana's metal ice cube trays for a MOMENTARY thrill) and movies (the kid has seen A Christmas Story. We've explained that it's real and that it HURTS), he just shrugged. It told me everything that I needed to know. He knew exactly what he was doing when he decided to pull his little stunt. This kid is being sold as soon as they let us start listing them on eBay.

I'm sure it was all for attention, which he got by almost every adult at the party when they shook their head and called him various synonyms for "village idiot." And I really saw no point in punishing him since the crime was punishment enough in itself. He still can't eat salty or spicy foods because his lips are raw and soda is out of the question. I doubt it, but I hope he learned that the moral of the story is "Listen to adults! They know what they're talking about!" before he decides that he has to see what happens when he pees on an electric fence.