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Location: Clarksville, TN, United States

At this moment, I am a 60 year old lady living with a 61 year old husband of 41 years. I have a loving son, Scott, who is mentally challenged (aka mentally retarded), and a beautiful daughter, Dawn who lives near Boston with her husband and son. I never understood what all the hoopla was about being a grandparent - now I do! I am the poster child for the obnoxious old lady with photos in hand!

Sunday, August 7, 2011

Honey Mustard or Ranch?

My husband has developed a thing  for salad dressings. . . especially Honey Mustard. (If you want to get specific, he loves O'Charley's Honey Mustard!)
I, on the other hand, love ranch. It's good on salads, great for dipping veggies and hey- makes a great mixer for chip dip!

While I do not care what salad dressing you use . . . Ed does. He is specifically concerned what I eat and what I offer Scott.

Scott loves ranch dip with fresh veggies - he would eat boundless amounts of it! Of course, being on Coumadin, he has his restrictions. He likes the ranch on his salad as well and I usually humor  him with it.

Each and every time lately, when Ed sees me grab the Ranch bottle he begins his tyriad on "why not give Scott some honey mustard - he would like it".

It has become a contest of sorts - who gets to the salad first.

It has me thinking today that how we treat our special needs children is the same sort of pidgeon-holing.  They must behave this way - or they would never like to do that!

Why -or - why not? Why do we assume any behavior is a result of their "Syndrome" or medical labels. That person has Downs so they have to be friendly - that person is autistic so they do not want to be touched. Huh? Is that not a little narrow minded? 

It is today's proper protocol to put the "people first". It is not correct to say a mentally retarded person, it is a person with mental retardation - if you HAVE to use the "R" word. 

I think too often we look for reasons when there just aren't any.  You like something or you don't! No real reason why I choose Ranch over Honey Mustard - I just prefer Ranch. 

If Scott or Sawyer were to be so selective in their food choices - professionals might say it is a marker for their specific problems. Odds are - they are like me - they just like the taste of one over the other - no real reason.

I used to love Bing cherries until I was about 8 years old. I spent one whole afternoon sitting in a huge cherry tree in my Uncle Joe's backyard with my cousins - eating Bing cherries - ALL AFTERNOON! When my uncle pulled into the driveway and saw us covered with cherry juice - we scrambled! By the time I got home- I was not feeling well and paid the price for all that Cherry eating for the next day. To this day, I can eat cherries but do not really love them any more. Just a taste and I am done!

I guess where I intended to go with this food parable was to say we should not label or prejudge what ANYONE can do or would be interested in doing because of their dna or medical labels. People without arms can surf, people without feet can run a marathon - the only limits anyone has are those we inflict on them. In being protective, we shelter those we love from the thrill of trying new things.  It is hard to take our hands off and let our loved ones fly - but the look of happiness when they soar is worth the butterflies we have in our tummies when they leap!

It's time for dinner - the salads are ready - and there are several bottles of salad dressing on the table- tonight Scott can pick his own!

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