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Weird things we say and do on this journey...

My last few posts have been on serious topics. I think it's time for some lighter reading.

I herewith present:

Weird / crazy things we say or do almost daily on our special needs journey.



 1. "Are you high?" - this is something most, if not all, type 1 diabetic parents must have said to their type 1 at some point. When Jacques' blood glucose is high he gets very thirsty, after his second glass we usually start to consider a high blood glucose. You can imagine the looks we have received when strangers overhear us talking about our 14 year old disabled son being high.



 2. "Where are your pants, and your shirt, why are you naked?!" Boy oh boy, we ask these questions at least once a day. Jacques loves stripping, if his pants or shirt are slightly wet, he will strip, without any shame, where he is, in front of everybody. As you can imagine there has been quite a few embarrassing moments over the years.


 3. "No, don't, stop!" To late, there goes the cat, flying through the air, again. Our cats definitely have more frequent flyer miles than we do.


 4. "Say thank you." This is Ruben's favorite phrase to use on his brother. We call him the thank you police. If someone gives Jacques something and he doesn't immediately say thank you (or show in sign language at least), Ruben will remind him very quickly.


 5. "Not so loud, Jacques." This is a very common phrase in our house. When Jacques has the mouse or remote control for the tv he doesn't have a happy medium with the volume. It is either very loud or there is no volume, there is no in between.


 6. The next word we use A LOT in our house and needs some explaining because it is in Afrikaans and the english translation will sound very crass. Jacques only has a few words he can pronounce quite well. And "poepol" is one of them. Now, the translation is "asshole". And we use this word as a joke when we speak to him and about him with each other. When we are in other company and he uses "poepol" it quickly changes to "popcorn" as it sounds a lot alike when he says it.


 7. "Where are the janitor keys?" The janitor keys refer to all the rooms in the house's keys, including the security gates to and in the kitchen. If we ever loose these keys we will be royally scr#wed. These are arguably the most important keys in the house, more important than the car keys, even more important than the front door keys. If we lose them we cannot sleep on our beds, or get in the bathroom, thus these keys are worth more than gold in our house. And someone usually asks this question at least once a day.


 8. Jacques' way of apologizing when he has done something naughty is saying "skiesie" in afrikaans, which means sorry. He uses his index finger when he signs the word. We always tease that he uses the wrong finger, it should be the middle finger because he doesn't mean it. And we have adopted his way of apologizing to each other, but we do use the middle finger then😜.

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