Contacts In My Book And In My Eyes

I took this photo only so that I could text it to my friend with the exclamation THE NEW PHONE BOOKS ARE HERE THE NEW PHONE BOOKS ARE HERE, and then he forgot that part of The Jerk and my joke was lost.

Thankfully I could post it everywhere else online AND OTHER PEOPLE GOT IT.

Anyway, I love that pic. But back to today's topic.

I have been having trouble with distance and close up the past few months. It's gotten worse recently and since it'd been a solid two years since I had a new set of lenses I decided I would get new ones. I asked during my exam if I could try contacts. I haven't worn them since God was a boy, but I remember thinking I was cute in them when I was 20 something. They do apparently make some that have different scrips in the lenses but the eye doctor really didn't think they were "IT" for me. She suggested I do MONOVISION.

I would best describe MONOVISION as being able to SEE NOT SEE. Monovision means one eye has one scrip for far (my dominant eye) and one eye has a scrip for close vision.  It's hard to describe how disturbing it is. It was hard to get used to progressive lenses, and this feels harder. I can tell you that, I can FEEL which eye is doing the seeing and that is disconcerting at best. I'd like my eyes to be like my ears, just doing their job and me not really knowing they were there.

Putting makeup on is a challenge, oh sweet lord it's a challenge. Up close OMG CAN'T SEE. Far away - TOO FAR HOW CAN I GET MY EYELINER ON? I did a back and forth dance somewhat like a slow, ungainly Charleston from the mirror with a soft brown eyeliner trying to find the sweet spot in my vision that never did quite happen.

I realized that I now actually had to do my eyeshadow vs just slap some shit on that would be a weird distorted mess under my big old frames and lenses, and in my attempt to make a smokey eye, I flung eyeshadow into my eye (the contact LOVED that for sure) at which point my eyeliner started running off down my cheek making a brown smear. I tried to wipe it off and it seemed to make a thick paste beside my eye - thanks Ulta I love your powder who KNEW it made paste too? I decided at that point that the only solution was MORE MAKE UP and started tabbing on concealer over this spot of doom and eventually concealed plus powdered it out of existence.

My intense makeup preparation was really just busy work because I was nervous about my 11 am appointment with my dentist today. I've been enjoying the classic symptoms of vicious headaches and temperature sensitivity that herald a root canal. I was actually having pain on the top and bottom, but it turned out that the top tooth had some recession at the gum line and they painted some sealant on it and MAGIC it no longer hurts. But the bottom tooth has a crack and needs a specialist so to a new endodontist I go in the morning.

It hurt so bad this evening that I took a for real pain pill, as ibuprofen won't even touch this lance of fire and misery that is shooting through my jaw.

It's kind of starting to work now. Sorry if I get loopy somewhere along the way here.

My dentist office had another great thing - AMAZING LIGHTING IN THE LADIES ROOM.

I look pretty damn good for 46.

My dedication to Mary Kay nightcream and Egyptian Magic (and every other cream I can get my hands on) are paying off. And good DNA. Let's don't forget the value of good DNA.

I'm in so much pain that honestly, I am looking FORWARD to the root canal tomorrow.

One of my best friends told me today that I look like Isabelli Rossellini. Seriously, I love her forever now.

Ok, and my drugs are kicking in so I'm going to go kill things in a video game and I will share my exciting root canal tomorrow ! I know you're excited!
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Contacts In My Book And In My Eyes

I took this photo only so that I could text it to my friend with the exclamation THE NEW PHONE BOOKS ARE HERE THE NEW PHONE BOOKS ARE HERE, and then he forgot that part of The Jerk and my joke was lost.

Thankfully I could post it everywhere else online AND OTHER PEOPLE GOT IT.

Anyway, I love that pic. But back to today's topic.

I have been having trouble with distance and close up the past few months. It's gotten worse recently and since it'd been a solid two years since I had a new set of lenses I decided I would get new ones. I asked during my exam if I could try contacts. I haven't worn them since God was a boy, but I remember thinking I was cute in them when I was 20 something. They do apparently make some that have different scrips in the lenses but the eye doctor really didn't think they were "IT" for me. She suggested I do MONOVISION.

I would best describe MONOVISION as being able to SEE NOT SEE. Monovision means one eye has one scrip for far (my dominant eye) and one eye has a scrip for close vision.  It's hard to describe how disturbing it is. It was hard to get used to progressive lenses, and this feels harder. I can tell you that, I can FEEL which eye is doing the seeing and that is disconcerting at best. I'd like my eyes to be like my ears, just doing their job and me not really knowing they were there.

Putting makeup on is a challenge, oh sweet lord it's a challenge. Up close OMG CAN'T SEE. Far away - TOO FAR HOW CAN I GET MY EYELINER ON? I did a back and forth dance somewhat like a slow, ungainly Charleston from the mirror with a soft brown eyeliner trying to find the sweet spot in my vision that never did quite happen.

I realized that I now actually had to do my eyeshadow vs just slap some shit on that would be a weird distorted mess under my big old frames and lenses, and in my attempt to make a smokey eye, I flung eyeshadow into my eye (the contact LOVED that for sure) at which point my eyeliner started running off down my cheek making a brown smear. I tried to wipe it off and it seemed to make a thick paste beside my eye - thanks Ulta I love your powder who KNEW it made paste too? I decided at that point that the only solution was MORE MAKE UP and started tabbing on concealer over this spot of doom and eventually concealed plus powdered it out of existence.

My intense makeup preparation was really just busy work because I was nervous about my 11 am appointment with my dentist today. I've been enjoying the classic symptoms of vicious headaches and temperature sensitivity that herald a root canal. I was actually having pain on the top and bottom, but it turned out that the top tooth had some recession at the gum line and they painted some sealant on it and MAGIC it no longer hurts. But the bottom tooth has a crack and needs a specialist so to a new endodontist I go in the morning.

It hurt so bad this evening that I took a for real pain pill, as ibuprofen won't even touch this lance of fire and misery that is shooting through my jaw.

It's kind of starting to work now. Sorry if I get loopy somewhere along the way here.

My dentist office had another great thing - AMAZING LIGHTING IN THE LADIES ROOM.

I look pretty damn good for 46.

My dedication to Mary Kay nightcream and Egyptian Magic (and every other cream I can get my hands on) are paying off. And good DNA. Let's don't forget the value of good DNA.

I'm in so much pain that honestly, I am looking FORWARD to the root canal tomorrow.

One of my best friends told me today that I look like Isabelli Rossellini. Seriously, I love her forever now.

Ok, and my drugs are kicking in so I'm going to go kill things in a video game and I will share my exciting root canal tomorrow ! I know you're excited!
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Autism Is Too Hard

I've mentioned the Raptor noise. I've mentioned the fact that Miles makes the noise and Charlie goes crazy. I haven't mentioned that when Charlie goes crazy he attacks someone, usually me.

Miles makes the noise specifically to incite Charlie. Why? I don't know. Evil? Glee? Joy? Malicious intent? Often at the same time he signals Charlie to surrender whatever he has, toy, pillow, blanket, piece of string, it doesn't matter. Charlie will surrender it and then start screaming - followed shortly by ATTACK.

If you haven't even been attacked by your own child, well, that's a good thing. It's a very specific sort of hell. If your child is big enough to hurt you, and strong enough to be a problem, well that's even worse. Mine is big and only getting bigger. He'll grab the flesh on my abdomen and back and twist and squeeze so hard it feels like he's going to rip me open. Or he'll jam his chin or head into me, usually someplace soft, or an arm (or hell a leg) repeatedly, as hard as he can. He bares his teeth like a chimp attacking, the chimp smile they talk about on nature shows that is actually a threat.

It's scary.

What's worse is that having to extricate myself means defending myself  FROM my child. Sometimes I have to fight back to get free, to keep from getting knocked down the stairs, to keep from getting truly hurt vs just bruised and mentally broken. Every time I happens I get lost in the horror that this is my baby, that baby that I gave birth to and was so tiny, so fragile. And he's trying to hurt me because he's in a rage he can't control.

Yesterday in the car he attacked Julia. Driving to pick up Louis from scout camp Miles started the noise, and Charlie started shrieking and screaming. Then Julia started shrieking and screaming - because she was being grabbed. I was driving 50 miles per hour. By the time I got to the pick up location the screaming and shrieking in the car had ramped up to the point that people were staring as we pulled up, more so when I left the car and took Julia with me.

Louis welcome home was a charming reminder of the nightmare his home life can be. Screaming and shrieking for no good reason, and people staring. Welcome home Kid, oh life sucks remember?

They're my babies, and I love them. Sometimes I don't know what we're supposed to do though. Just a notch or two up on the Spectrum would've made our lives so much easier. I don't know how to deal with this new behavior, I don't know how to deal with the way this breaks my heart.

This screaming, this fighting, this attacking and hurting, this is the kind of shit that long term breaks families apart.

Who could blame anybody for wanting to escape this situation? Poopie diapers from 11 year olds and nonstop chaos? Yeah, I can understand not wanting to be here. This is why families with special needs children get divorced. 

There's no  magic pill to make this better. This is literally my life for the rest of my life. I'd like to say I'm at peace with it but that would be a fucking lie. I'm not. I'm pissed off. We're both pissed off and would like our normal lives back now please. 

It's not happening, and I'm trying to find some level of peace with it I am. I don't believe THERE IS A PLAN or I'M BEING TESTED (in fact, I might smack you one for suggesting it). I'm just trying to find a way not to cry at bed time, not to feel like I'm failing everyone, and that there is no hope. That's what I resent the most, the fact that there is no hope. It might get better in degrees but there is no cure.

I normally try to be positive about their autism but sometimes even I can't roll with that shit and after this past week I just can't. It's been bad. 

It'll get better. It'll calm down. 

But when?

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Autism Is Too Hard

I've mentioned the Raptor noise. I've mentioned the fact that Miles makes the noise and Charlie goes crazy. I haven't mentioned that when Charlie goes crazy he attacks someone, usually me.

Miles makes the noise specifically to incite Charlie. Why? I don't know. Evil? Glee? Joy? Malicious intent? Often at the same time he signals Charlie to surrender whatever he has, toy, pillow, blanket, piece of string, it doesn't matter. Charlie will surrender it and then start screaming - followed shortly by ATTACK.

If you haven't even been attacked by your own child, well, that's a good thing. It's a very specific sort of hell. If your child is big enough to hurt you, and strong enough to be a problem, well that's even worse. Mine is big and only getting bigger. He'll grab the flesh on my abdomen and back and twist and squeeze so hard it feels like he's going to rip me open. Or he'll jam his chin or head into me, usually someplace soft, or an arm (or hell a leg) repeatedly, as hard as he can. He bares his teeth like a chimp attacking, the chimp smile they talk about on nature shows that is actually a threat.

It's scary.

What's worse is that having to extricate myself means defending myself  FROM my child. Sometimes I have to fight back to get free, to keep from getting knocked down the stairs, to keep from getting truly hurt vs just bruised and mentally broken. Every time I happens I get lost in the horror that this is my baby, that baby that I gave birth to and was so tiny, so fragile. And he's trying to hurt me because he's in a rage he can't control.

Yesterday in the car he attacked Julia. Driving to pick up Louis from scout camp Miles started the noise, and Charlie started shrieking and screaming. Then Julia started shrieking and screaming - because she was being grabbed. I was driving 50 miles per hour. By the time I got to the pick up location the screaming and shrieking in the car had ramped up to the point that people were staring as we pulled up, more so when I left the car and took Julia with me.

Louis welcome home was a charming reminder of the nightmare his home life can be. Screaming and shrieking for no good reason, and people staring. Welcome home Kid, oh life sucks remember?

They're my babies, and I love them. Sometimes I don't know what we're supposed to do though. Just a notch or two up on the Spectrum would've made our lives so much easier. I don't know how to deal with this new behavior, I don't know how to deal with the way this breaks my heart.

This screaming, this fighting, this attacking and hurting, this is the kind of shit that long term breaks families apart.

Who could blame anybody for wanting to escape this situation? Poopie diapers from 11 year olds and nonstop chaos? Yeah, I can understand not wanting to be here. This is why families with special needs children get divorced. 

There's no  magic pill to make this better. This is literally my life for the rest of my life. I'd like to say I'm at peace with it but that would be a fucking lie. I'm not. I'm pissed off. We're both pissed off and would like our normal lives back now please. 

It's not happening, and I'm trying to find some level of peace with it I am. I don't believe THERE IS A PLAN or I'M BEING TESTED (in fact, I might smack you one for suggesting it). I'm just trying to find a way not to cry at bed time, not to feel like I'm failing everyone, and that there is no hope. That's what I resent the most, the fact that there is no hope. It might get better in degrees but there is no cure.

I normally try to be positive about their autism but sometimes even I can't roll with that shit and after this past week I just can't. It's been bad. 

It'll get better. It'll calm down. 

But when?

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Making Things And Stuff

I always kind of wanted to go to the workshops at Home Depot. I say KIND OF wanted because it was always a cursory want, sort of a "oh that'd be cool oh wait I don't build things" sort of passing fancy.  There was one I always regretted not going to where they built adirondack chairs. I bet that was cool as hell.

So when I kept seeing it pop up on my Facebook about building a storage ottoman I decided maybe I should just go. First of all, to see if my anxiety really had abated and I could just go and do something by myself for no reason at all without feeling panicked and out of place. And secondly, COOL THING TO BUILD. It looked easy, so easy even a Gidge could do it.

So I registered and showed up at 6:30. After five minutes of waiting to find out where to go, I wandered back to flooring and hung out another ten, but several people apologized saying that the person had gotten hung up doing something else. That seems plausible as everyone in a Home Depot apron is fair game to disturb and ask for help. I sat and cruised Facebook and I think I might've been singing along to the piped in tunes without realizing it when they rolled up with the goods.

I was the only person who showed up, and I learned that sometimes if you're the only person who shows up you get to keep the item you learn to make!

I was really amazed at how easy it was to make, and how easy it would be to make a bigger one. This one is made with TWO boxes, but I was thinking FOUR might make a really nice sized coffee table - this one is billed as an ottoman but I am just gonna call it a table.

So my take away was, this was incredibly fun. Ok they shot the picture to make it look bigger, or used the SMALLEST SOFA EVER and shot it FROM the floor. However, I'm not disappointed as it's really a cute piece, it just needs stained I think. I could probably knock that out soon if I could manage not to get water rings on it until them. If that happens - hey maybe decoupage you never know. Is that still a thing? I'm bringing it back if necessary, I tell you that.

Today's accomplishments, made a table, worked out, went to work all day. So far - I'm feeling pretty productive!

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Making Things And Stuff

I always kind of wanted to go to the workshops at Home Depot. I say KIND OF wanted because it was always a cursory want, sort of a "oh that'd be cool oh wait I don't build things" sort of passing fancy.  There was one I always regretted not going to where they built adirondack chairs. I bet that was cool as hell.

So when I kept seeing it pop up on my Facebook about building a storage ottoman I decided maybe I should just go. First of all, to see if my anxiety really had abated and I could just go and do something by myself for no reason at all without feeling panicked and out of place. And secondly, COOL THING TO BUILD. It looked easy, so easy even a Gidge could do it.

So I registered and showed up at 6:30. After five minutes of waiting to find out where to go, I wandered back to flooring and hung out another ten, but several people apologized saying that the person had gotten hung up doing something else. That seems plausible as everyone in a Home Depot apron is fair game to disturb and ask for help. I sat and cruised Facebook and I think I might've been singing along to the piped in tunes without realizing it when they rolled up with the goods.

I was the only person who showed up, and I learned that sometimes if you're the only person who shows up you get to keep the item you learn to make!

I was really amazed at how easy it was to make, and how easy it would be to make a bigger one. This one is made with TWO boxes, but I was thinking FOUR might make a really nice sized coffee table - this one is billed as an ottoman but I am just gonna call it a table.

So my take away was, this was incredibly fun. Ok they shot the picture to make it look bigger, or used the SMALLEST SOFA EVER and shot it FROM the floor. However, I'm not disappointed as it's really a cute piece, it just needs stained I think. I could probably knock that out soon if I could manage not to get water rings on it until them. If that happens - hey maybe decoupage you never know. Is that still a thing? I'm bringing it back if necessary, I tell you that.

Today's accomplishments, made a table, worked out, went to work all day. So far - I'm feeling pretty productive!

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The Family Night

My oldest child is away at Boy Scout camp all week. He's gone to the mountains of South Carolina and doing Boy Scout things, working on his certifications and he tells me he's going to advance three levels on his quest to Eagle Scout while he's there. He has a really wonderful group of guys he's with and I can remember my own days at camp well enough to know that he's having a great time.

We had originally told him we weren't coming for Family Night. It's way up in the mountains in SC almost to NC, almost touching TN also. But we decided to surprise him so I took off early yesterday and northeast we went. It was serendipity that as we pulled up he just happened to come walking by.

He's bunking with his buddy, and despite the fact that the radar showed DOOOOOOM two nights ago (that was the official forecast) he says it just rained some, no big deal. I can't express my relief enough, let's just say I was more than a little worried and had trouble sleeping. No I'm not over protective at all why?

Julia was incredibly excited to see Louis and shortly after she decided she was going back down the hill for flag ceremony with all of the boys, she then fell and skinned her knee and had to come back. I'm told she screamed "I NEED MY PARENTS." Which is very oddly funny to me.

When the boys came back it was pizza time, a meal for everyone to enjoy together. Not exactly simple camping fair but easy.

Miles started having a bit of a meltdown as soon as the boys went to flag ceremony. We stayed up at the campsite thankfully. I regretted not going for a moment but after his meltdown progressed into full on crazy tantrum (for no apparent reason) I was glad we weren't below embarrassing Louis.

A meal seemed to change everyone's demeanor greatly, Julia was the only person who ate three pieces of pizza. That cracks me up since most of the boys are in high school.  After dinner it was time for some Frisbee or HISBEE as Julia keeps calling it. She was ECSTATIC because the boys let her play with them and they all cheered for her every time, even when she missed.

While the boys all played frisbee and hung out, the adults started a big tub of ice cream. The scouts all took turns making it and since we had a lot of kids, we had a lot of participation in the turning of the crank.

Making ice cream was nearly as much fun as playing hisbee from what I can tell. Not quite as much fun as eating it, however.

Everyone was a pretty darn big fan. I even remembered not to cuss while I was there, I was pretty proud of myself.

I said DANGIT like 50 times. Also DANG. I think I'm gonna start sighing the word "SUG" (as in sugar) like Dale's wife on King of the Hill as a swear and expression of frustration.

He's coming home Friday instead of Saturday - I think because bad storms are forecast for the weekend. I'm sad he's losing a day but glad he's home earlier. I know it's been a week of freedom and learning for him. He's not the kid who has to help take care of his disabled siblings, or who has to help watch his wild child baby sister, he's just Louis for a solid week. He's solo, single, a solitary unit in the world without all of the responsibilities of his normal day to day life.

I bet it's a wonderful and welcome break.
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The Family Night

My oldest child is away at Boy Scout camp all week. He's gone to the mountains of South Carolina and doing Boy Scout things, working on his certifications and he tells me he's going to advance three levels on his quest to Eagle Scout while he's there. He has a really wonderful group of guys he's with and I can remember my own days at camp well enough to know that he's having a great time.

We had originally told him we weren't coming for Family Night. It's way up in the mountains in SC almost to NC, almost touching TN also. But we decided to surprise him so I took off early yesterday and northeast we went. It was serendipity that as we pulled up he just happened to come walking by.

He's bunking with his buddy, and despite the fact that the radar showed DOOOOOOM two nights ago (that was the official forecast) he says it just rained some, no big deal. I can't express my relief enough, let's just say I was more than a little worried and had trouble sleeping. No I'm not over protective at all why?

Julia was incredibly excited to see Louis and shortly after she decided she was going back down the hill for flag ceremony with all of the boys, she then fell and skinned her knee and had to come back. I'm told she screamed "I NEED MY PARENTS." Which is very oddly funny to me.

When the boys came back it was pizza time, a meal for everyone to enjoy together. Not exactly simple camping fair but easy.

Miles started having a bit of a meltdown as soon as the boys went to flag ceremony. We stayed up at the campsite thankfully. I regretted not going for a moment but after his meltdown progressed into full on crazy tantrum (for no apparent reason) I was glad we weren't below embarrassing Louis.

A meal seemed to change everyone's demeanor greatly, Julia was the only person who ate three pieces of pizza. That cracks me up since most of the boys are in high school.  After dinner it was time for some Frisbee or HISBEE as Julia keeps calling it. She was ECSTATIC because the boys let her play with them and they all cheered for her every time, even when she missed.

While the boys all played frisbee and hung out, the adults started a big tub of ice cream. The scouts all took turns making it and since we had a lot of kids, we had a lot of participation in the turning of the crank.

Making ice cream was nearly as much fun as playing hisbee from what I can tell. Not quite as much fun as eating it, however.

Everyone was a pretty darn big fan. I even remembered not to cuss while I was there, I was pretty proud of myself.

I said DANGIT like 50 times. Also DANG. I think I'm gonna start sighing the word "SUG" (as in sugar) like Dale's wife on King of the Hill as a swear and expression of frustration.

He's coming home Friday instead of Saturday - I think because bad storms are forecast for the weekend. I'm sad he's losing a day but glad he's home earlier. I know it's been a week of freedom and learning for him. He's not the kid who has to help take care of his disabled siblings, or who has to help watch his wild child baby sister, he's just Louis for a solid week. He's solo, single, a solitary unit in the world without all of the responsibilities of his normal day to day life.

I bet it's a wonderful and welcome break.
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Dolphins are the Dicks of the Animal World

Our passes to the Georgia Aquarium were getting set to expire so we took one last jaunt down there. We like to rotate our family passes to different places. The Aquarium is my favorite place in the world so I'm going to miss it. But it's my goal that in two years when we get passes again (someone tell my husband I want passes again in two years) that I will dive in the big tank. That's a bucket list item that I want to do RIGHT NOW but I also want to do it when I'm not this size so - two years from now should be perfect.

It was a weird trip from the beginning as the aquarium was PACKED. It's not that we don't like crowds, but UGH crowds at the humid aquarium are sort of brutal. It's almost like they are going to have to require reservations because it seemed like there were way too many people in there.

It was peaceful to look UP in the tunnels though, even if there were monsters above you. I wonder how loud it is in there, and if we annoy them. I sometimes wonder if they swim by to have a look at us.

In 12 years of parenting, no one has ever gotten face paint in this family. I am going to admit right now that while no one ever asked, I also never encouraged it. I grew up in a household where writing on yourself with a pen or marker was strictly verboten - something that my mother equated with low class ignorance. "It looks trashy." I can say pretty certainly that this is a reason I never encouraged the face painting thing. But the girl asked, and frankly - WHY NOT. Her Daddy said yes and I couldn't think of a valid reason to object so she picked out a seahorse and away we went, crushing the social norms of my childhood.

Shortly after this we made one of the worst parenting decisions we've made in a long time, we decided to go to the dolphin show - and we decided to sit in THE SPLASH ZONE.

We thought, oh some splashing will be ok. How bad could it be? We've NEVER done it. My kids LOVE the Dolphin Show. Mostly they love the dolphins, the show itself is seriously one of the worst things ever. Picture a really bad Vegas show, now make it worse, now make it like Christopher Walken being Captain Hook and singing and dancing, now, add dolphins. It's like that.  So we thought for FUN, ONE LAST TIME we'd sit down close.

We had to change seats once because Miles reached behind us and plucked a pretzel off the plate of a man behind us. He was turned, didn't notice, and suddenly Miles was eating a big old pretzel that I am SURE this guy paid 6  bucks for. We moved ONE section over - to dead center.

It started out ok. A little dolphin mist and splash. That's when the full attack began...

If you've  never been the victim of five dolphins doing everything they can to soak you with water, and the same number of humans giving them rewards to do so, then you've never been in this particular hell. The amount of water coming off this tank and literally drenching us looked like this...

Jurassic World only had a dolphin. It wasn't a mososaur at all.

As my children shrieked and screamed, and tried to escape up the seats and sobbed and begged the strangers behind us to help us, I considered my poor parenting choices and had to laugh. In fact, I laughed so hard Julia started screaming STOP LAUGHING.

This picture does not adequately show how wet we were, and how unhappy everyone was. But we were trying to cheer Julia up. Every time the dolphins came out she'd start sobbing. She also wiped her sea horse paint all over my shirt, ruining it.

We were wet inside our shoes and top of our heads, and everywhere in between. We had planned to go have a nice dinner - kind of a fun end to a family day out. However, we now smelled like wet dolphin water and weren't fit to go anywhere (not even the Varsity) so we settled on Chinese.

We were eating in Duluth - so if you're local you know how completely accurate this is.

The day wasn't a success. It was perfect family day, ruined by the dicks of the animal world - DOLPHINS.

Oh well, maybe in two years when we go back the trauma will be worn off and they'll have a different show. Additionally - we will NOT sit in the splash zone.

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Dolphins are the Dicks of the Animal World

Our passes to the Georgia Aquarium were getting set to expire so we took one last jaunt down there. We like to rotate our family passes to different places. The Aquarium is my favorite place in the world so I'm going to miss it. But it's my goal that in two years when we get passes again (someone tell my husband I want passes again in two years) that I will dive in the big tank. That's a bucket list item that I want to do RIGHT NOW but I also want to do it when I'm not this size so - two years from now should be perfect.

It was a weird trip from the beginning as the aquarium was PACKED. It's not that we don't like crowds, but UGH crowds at the humid aquarium are sort of brutal. It's almost like they are going to have to require reservations because it seemed like there were way too many people in there.

It was peaceful to look UP in the tunnels though, even if there were monsters above you. I wonder how loud it is in there, and if we annoy them. I sometimes wonder if they swim by to have a look at us.

In 12 years of parenting, no one has ever gotten face paint in this family. I am going to admit right now that while no one ever asked, I also never encouraged it. I grew up in a household where writing on yourself with a pen or marker was strictly verboten - something that my mother equated with low class ignorance. "It looks trashy." I can say pretty certainly that this is a reason I never encouraged the face painting thing. But the girl asked, and frankly - WHY NOT. Her Daddy said yes and I couldn't think of a valid reason to object so she picked out a seahorse and away we went, crushing the social norms of my childhood.

Shortly after this we made one of the worst parenting decisions we've made in a long time, we decided to go to the dolphin show - and we decided to sit in THE SPLASH ZONE.

We thought, oh some splashing will be ok. How bad could it be? We've NEVER done it. My kids LOVE the Dolphin Show. Mostly they love the dolphins, the show itself is seriously one of the worst things ever. Picture a really bad Vegas show, now make it worse, now make it like Christopher Walken being Captain Hook and singing and dancing, now, add dolphins. It's like that.  So we thought for FUN, ONE LAST TIME we'd sit down close.

We had to change seats once because Miles reached behind us and plucked a pretzel off the plate of a man behind us. He was turned, didn't notice, and suddenly Miles was eating a big old pretzel that I am SURE this guy paid 6  bucks for. We moved ONE section over - to dead center.

It started out ok. A little dolphin mist and splash. That's when the full attack began...

If you've  never been the victim of five dolphins doing everything they can to soak you with water, and the same number of humans giving them rewards to do so, then you've never been in this particular hell. The amount of water coming off this tank and literally drenching us looked like this...

Jurassic World only had a dolphin. It wasn't a mososaur at all.

As my children shrieked and screamed, and tried to escape up the seats and sobbed and begged the strangers behind us to help us, I considered my poor parenting choices and had to laugh. In fact, I laughed so hard Julia started screaming STOP LAUGHING.

This picture does not adequately show how wet we were, and how unhappy everyone was. But we were trying to cheer Julia up. Every time the dolphins came out she'd start sobbing. She also wiped her sea horse paint all over my shirt, ruining it.

We were wet inside our shoes and top of our heads, and everywhere in between. We had planned to go have a nice dinner - kind of a fun end to a family day out. However, we now smelled like wet dolphin water and weren't fit to go anywhere (not even the Varsity) so we settled on Chinese.

We were eating in Duluth - so if you're local you know how completely accurate this is.

The day wasn't a success. It was perfect family day, ruined by the dicks of the animal world - DOLPHINS.

Oh well, maybe in two years when we go back the trauma will be worn off and they'll have a different show. Additionally - we will NOT sit in the splash zone.

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