Merry Christmas Traditions

I'm going to stick to my Danish roots here and say that today is Christmas enough to say "Merry Christmas". Growing up, we celebrated both days of the holiday. You had dinner and exchanged gifts on December 24th. The following morning you opened what Santa put in your stocking or under the tree or both and just had a leisurely, simple breakfast (normally some kind of pastry), at lebkucken (not me cause I don't like it), and basked in the delight of the holiday. One formal celebration, on informal. I kinda miss the tradition and feel a little lost on Christmas Eve without it.

My husband's family does not celebrate this way, but there are times when we've had Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve. That really all depends on the rest of the family's schedule. The fist Christmas we spend with the my husband's family, the boy was only four, so I doubt he remembers his first three holidays. This is pretty much the only sort of celebration he knows. Sometimes it makes me sad because, as a parent, you want to share these things with your kid. You want to recreate the joy you had as kid with your kid.

The one thing I do love about my in-laws traditions? No stress. My family cannot seem to function with any measure of peace. Over the years, I came to dread certain parts of the festivities. The fights. The two days of cooking. The lack of sleep. The chaos. The who-is-not-coming-cause-they-are-mad-at-so-and-so. The you-can't-make-that-dish-that-way-so-its-easier. I can't imagine subjecting my boy to the stress that used to abound. While I miss my childhood holidays, I do not miss the beast those holidays turned into.

We do hang stockings at the grandparents house Christmas Eve... and when I say stockings, I mean the real deal. Legg's are hung on the chimney with care. It's actually a really neat and old fashioned tradition. To belay anticipation anxiety, we do let him open one gift Christmas Eve. Otherwise, he may literally explode from excitement. And I call today Christmas. 

(At this very second, the whining about opening a gift has started. Apparently, we let him open a gift at 10 am last year, so we are two hours late this year. I have no recollection of when we did last year, but an aspie never forgets. Still, I'm making him clean up his various messes before unwrapping.)

Scrap Credits

Garland Tree

Papers

Betsy Tuma Snow kissed Christmas @ two peas in a bucket

Brandy Buffington Holiday Party @ two peas in a bucket

Kelly Jo Scraps Jingle Bell Rock Collab

Ellies

Kelly Jo Scraps Jingle Bell Rock Collab

Natlie Designs Merry Christmas

Decorated

Papers:

Betsy Tuma Snow kissed Christmas @ two peas in a bucket

Shabby Princess Holiday Sampler

Deliscious Scraps Articliscious

Ellies:

Kelly Jo Scraps Jingle Bell Rock Collab

Shabby Princess Holiday Magic

Natlie Designs Merry Christmas

Another Digi Scrap Page

This one is of my niece, Chrissa. An interesting tid-bit: I came up with her name. Her dad wanted to name her Christina, her mom (my sister) didn't care for that. One day, I was playing with that flubby little baby-lady. I was kinda putting her upside down and right side up again while saying "Chris" on the down motion and "uh" when coming up. It came out 'Chriiss-ssaaaa' in my teen-aunt silly voice.

Her mom walked in one me, heard my gross exaggeration on the name Chris, looked at me and exclaimed "That's it!". I had no idea what she was talking about. "Chrissa.", she said, "That's the name". Both parents agreed that my silliness settled the name argument. That's when I learned that a little silliness can go a long way.

In this page, I used Delicious Scrap's Spring Collection of Mini Kits (there's a 99 cent sale going on their store right now, so if you have the cash, I say go for it) along with Shabby Princess' Promise kit. Shabby Princess is another one of my favorite group of designers. I would love to one day actually buy a whole kit, but for now, it's freebies for me.

I'm trying very hard to limit myself to one or two kits with these pages in order to self edit and remember who I need to credit since I use freebies. Also, I'm trying to hone the skills I remember. I need to find a good tutorial group again. The goal is to one be able to print out these pages and put them into a book. One day...

Here is the end result:

Struggling to explain Asperger's Syndrome

I am having a hard time with this one. When someone looks at my boy in the middle of a meltdown or during certain behaviors they start with the "he needs more discipline" or "he's very spoiled" or "you need to do X so your child doesn't Z". It's very frustrating, especially when the comments fly mid-meltdown or during those typical autism behaviors.

My boy's meltdowns have decreased significantly over the past year. They went from lasting all day to under an hour. Each time, its less severe. That severity always depends on the trigger, but even still its better than it was even two months ago. He makes improvements with each one. He gets disappointed in himself when it happens because he ruins his Days Without a Meltdown Record (because they used to happen everyday, now its twice a week at worst).

I have to remind him that some of his reactions are appropriate for the circumstance. It's okay to be disappointed, cry and whine. That's not a meltdown and it is okay to express those feelings. If he was a normal kid, I wouldn't have to explain what the appropriate methods of reaction to negative things were and I wouldn't have to do it weekly.

He is spoiled, I admit, but he is an only child. He has no competition from siblings, he has more resources available to him. That's okay. I don't know how you would stop him being an only child... besides the obvious, which isn't happening any time soon.

I've done a lot of explaining, but I fear it comes off as excusing. That makes it frustrating for everyone. When my kid says "please leave me alone" or "don't touch me, please" (and we've really worked hard on expressing those needs appropriately and politely) and an adult does not respect his wishes, the boy gets to a point where he feels forced to be more aggressive. Yet so many adults do not respect his need for personal space. They push him and he ends up pushing back. That makes my boy look like a bad kid because he's over-reacting (or so it seems to other adults) to their stimulation.

He's not over-reacting. That's him. At times, touches, conversation or another humans mere presence overload his sensory system. He short circuits. It's cause and effect. And adults aren't very good at listening to and respecting children when it comes to their personal space and boundaries.

They aren't very good at listening to the people who know the child best either. This is hard when that other adult is inescapable or a family member. The resistance to accepting an Autism Spectrum Diagnosis is maddening at times. Why do people feel its necessary to argue a diagnosis given by an expert? It's not like the evaluation is a 5 minute process given by someone with Bachelor's Degree (unless its an education diagnosis *rolling eyes*).

The other day I said during a meltdown that "this is nothing". There was only crying and door slamming. He was able to be talked down. HUGE improvement. HUGE. Yet I still had to say again that my boy has made stellar progress, that discipline isn't going to fix him. That taking away his slumber party wasn't a good punishment because he needs that social interaction, especially since he's homeschooled now. (Homeschooling is another thing I'm a so tired of explaining)

Discipline isn't going to help him, unless its something that warrants traditional discipline. What we do with him works. It's proven to work. Why? Because he is getting better. Because we, as his parents, no what we are doing. And guess what? He isn't always going to succeed and he's going to make mistakes. He's a kid and he's not perfect, but he's learning.


My husband gives these explanations so much better than me. It's too bad he isn't in a position to do any deep discussions. Even still, even though he's a therapist who specializes in children and has tons of Aspie kids on his roster, there are many people who don't trust his assessment of his own kid. The neurologist does, you know, the guy who is the expert in the field? And the neurologist trusts me, the mom, as being an expert on my child's behavior. But what does he know? *sarcasm*


I found myself wanting to say this week that people need to develop a thicker skin. My boy wouldn't lash out at a person he doesn't feel comfortable and safe. It's a twisted compliment. He doesn't mean it, he just doesn't know how to express himself. What he's saying is "I need you to understand me instead of judge me or tell me I'm a bad kid". Or he's saying "If I yell at you than maybe you'll help me through what I'm experiencing because I am terribly uncomfortable". Instead, adults just get mad or upset with him. 


I'm left wondering how you explain to people close to you that its not because he's a spoiled brat, but because he's autistic? How you put in terms they can understand? What is the magic combination of words? How do you avoid the frustration and hurt feelings?

Fixing a Chiari Malformation Part One: Processing.

Yesterday was a long, harrowing day. Husband's father says its always good to be a surgeon's first patient of the day. If you know my husband and his dad, being prompt isn't an aspiration, its a sin. Being early is always best, which yesterday we were. On the other hand, my sister says being late is better, regardless of your surgery order. I understand both of their reasoning this morning.

We were early and second in line for surgery (that's the royal we or is that the author's we? or maybe just "wee" because I am still tired and haven't had enough coffee). Husband's check in time at the hospital was supposed to be 6:30am Thursday morning, but for my husband it was 6:09am. It would have been 5:58, but there was a line at the surgery check in desk.

I don't know what time we were taken back to "processing", which is basically where they make you wait to get to the pre-operative area, get fully admitted by your pre-op nurse and get naked, dressed in one of those horrible (yet fashionable?) hospital gowns while listen to the hustle and bustle of nurses, techs patients and alarms. I can't tell you what time it was then, but I can tell you that the nurses were looking forward to lunch.

If you want to calm a nervous patient, this is not the place nor the time to do it. The communication is nill, you get checked on by someone who has no information about how long you will be waiting before something very scary happens and the standard answer is "I'm not sure". I don't think in the six hours my inlaws, husband and me waited in the pre-op area that any confidence in the unfamiliar hospital and its staff was gained. Lost, maybe, but definitely not earned.

The coffee stand did have excellent coffee, but they should have given away a free Xanax for every surgical patient family member. Or maybe a shot of something to take the edge off. Even better, they should have given my husband something to relax him and something for the pain he endured going without medication since 10pm the previous night. The nurse did finally ask if his pain level warranted a medication, but not until 30 minutes before he left for surgery.

You know what's great? I was reminded as different as my husband is from his dad, they still have many similarities. One of those is an inability to cope when situations and circumstances are out 100% out of their control. It was just a little scary when we got to hour four. Not to mention, my silly sense of humor isn't understood by my father-in-law all the time. He must think I'm nuts at this point. My using re-framing to deal with my husband's wait time wasn't understood much either, so I finally explained very nicely that having a big, clear picture shown to you in a different light is helpful and calming. And then I had a cigarette or two because I needed a break. I love my fathers, but sometimes they need a woman's perspective in a blunt way. That was not the time. And my father in law still thinks I am nice. I think...  

But finally he did leave for surgery. An orderly who educated us on how and when to steal stuff from the hospital (even though I didn't see anything worth stealing) zipped us up to the Preparation Area, or rather the husband got to go there and I was given the world's fastest instructions to the waiting area. Naturally, after all this wait, my inlaws had gone off to eat lunch meaning they missed this part.

I checked into the much nicer surgical lounge (why they call it a "lounge" I have no idea because no one looked to be lounging) then ran off to find my inlaws. I was entirely too nervous to hit the right buttons on my cell phone. Actually, I was so nervous that it took me a good 5 minutes to find an elevator to the cafeteria. And naturally that meant I couldn't direct my husband's parents to where they needed to go.

Epic Daughter-in-law Fail. I went to the car for a smoke (sorry, this has been sooo stressful!) and called everyone that I had intended to call post surgery at the time they expected to hear outcome to say "yay, he just went into to the prep area". My kid said "okay Ma, call me in 4 hours". Typical Asperger's-- memorized the length of the surgery and wanted no more info. Now if everyone were like that...

Part Two will follow later. I have 30 more minutes of solitude and coffee before we go visiting (so, you know, happy ending and all).

Kid Manual: A little mom snark

Today, I have been working on updating my family calendar, whittling down our to-do list and brain storming exactly how I am going to explain Asperger's Syndrome to my sister who will be staying with us while the husband is in the hospital and during his recovery process. It is all a little overwhelming (I seem to use this descriptor on a daily basis these days) seeing how our calendar is expanding into next year July, my to-do list keeps having baby to-do lists and nothing about autism seems to be simple. Being tired of being overwhelmed, I am starting feel a little snarky and well, it does not take me much to feel irritated.

Being that I am the most unorganized person in the universe, the calendar and to-do lists are in messy piles around my computer. I have scrap papers with dates, phone numbers and things I need to remember all over the place. I have 5 lists to remind me that I need cat litter, dish soap and a three ring binder so that I don't have to have 500 pieces of paper on my dining room table. I keep adding names and addresses to our family's master phone list, which I have two versions of—one on the computer, one hard copy.

I have three calendars. THREE. One is the pretty wall calendar not on the wall because I keep having to write things on it and the tack finally came out from the wall and is now awaiting my foot to find it some really wonderful day. I have pages of printed out monthly calendars spread around me and on top of the pretty wall calendar. Then there is the appointment calendar on our refrigerator, where on one half there is a space to write appointment particulars and the other half lives entire year of 2011, allowing me to highlight important dates.

I am that bad. I need the three calendars. If I didn't have them, I'd be lost at this very point and time. Writing things down three times seems to seal the information into my brain. Plus I can just tell my husband "I dunno, look on the fridge".

The Kid Manual (aka Welcome to Our Asperger's) I intend on writing plagues me the most. How do I explain it? How do I say that I need his future care-takers to re-invent their thinking? How do you tell someone that when your kid says "I hate you", he's really saying "I lack the ability to process and handle this situation at this particular moment in time?". How do you tell another adult, a family member and person stepping in to run your household in a time of great need that they are going to have to re-learn child care-taking from the ground up?

Asperger's affects my son in so many ways, some of them small and subtle and others large and glaringly apparent. When I was talking to my sister about her helping with my son, she said she was going to "put him to work". My stomach dropped. You can't just waltz in and change things with my kid. Yes, he is responsible for cleaning up after himself for the most part. Except there is a big BUT to this statement: Asperger's defines mess and order for my child and thus as his parents we must redefine clean and tidy for ourselves. Our house is never what I would call tidy (it's not filthy either), but I've learned to accept the fact that the kid's favorite pieces of clothing live under our living room end table. His bike lives by our front door. His toys organized by type in two large bins in the living room, the larger guns behind those bins to avoid being scratched. And sometimes parts of trees reside in odd areas inside my home. For the past month, he decided his skateboard should live behind the couch, until his dad convinced his otherwise. Everything has a place, but those places aren't what one would consider typical.

My mother, when she thought she would be able to stay in our home during my husband's surgery, told me I shouldn't worry because she wouldn't put up with any S-H-I-T from the kid. Again, I cringed. I had visions of my son saying, "Grandma, STOP TALKING TO ME!" in a not so polite way. If we were talking about a normal child, then yes, it would be a cause to take appropriate disciplinary action (go to your room and think about it!). But this is an Aspie kid. He's not saying it to be disrespectful; he's just trying to say that his senses are overloaded at the moment and he requires time in which to cope before engaging in conversation. He says it that way because he learned it to be the most effective way to get his needs met. We've worked tirelessly to correct this method of communication, have taken our first steps into the world of "I require a minute to process this, Mom, please" and I don't need it undone. The kid doesn't need it undone either because he is starting to get the effectiveness of polite self-expression when wanting to get his special needs met. And meeting that "stop talking to me" rude-sounding statement with anger is a recipe for a full blown autistic meltdown.

I need my family to accept that my son is autistic; that he has Asperger's and will never grow out of it, but rather into it—he'll meld who he is with the world he lives within to make his life work for him. I need them to accept that it's okay to be different, to meet a child's needs differently than they did with their own children and for my family not have an agenda to show me that as a parent, I am just using autism to excuse bad behavior because I don't have a back-bone. Or something.

I have a child who does not function like normal children and that means I do not function like a normal mother (and 'normal' would never be a word anyone would ever use to describe me either.. apple, tree and whatnot). I need my family to understand that fundamental concept. I need my family to forget what worked with their own neuro-typical children and trust that I know what I'm doing with my Aspie boy. My boy has come a long, long way in the past two years (time my family has not spent watching him grow). It wouldn't take long for someone to undo all that hard work—hard work that my son has put in everyday ever since he found out he was not inherently evil (the stigma of being diagnosed later rather than sooner).

The snarky part? Well, that's me thinking of every clever, witty retort to the anti-Carrie-as-a-mom statements a Kid Manual may garner; so snarky that those responses could find themselves as part of the manual itself. For instance: How do you know its autism instead of bad parenting? Because this dude with lots of letters behind his name, that specializes in children's brains and whom the state of Delaware recognizes as more qualified than you to decide whether or not a child has Asperger's told me that my son was off-the-freaking-charts-no-doubt-about-it an Aspie boy, but if you need more than my word for it, here's a medical release you can take to said doctor to discuss the matter further.

Or maybe there should be a section about why I know my son better than anyone else on this earth and therefore understand what he needs? A section devoted to why I am not taking my family's (constant) parenting advice. It would start with "If you think you need to tell me what I need to do with my Aspie boy based on what you did with your normal kid, please refer to Snarky section of this manual. Otherwise, please pick an appropriate response from the following list:

• Uh-huh, I understand what you are saying. Thank you for the input.
  
• I have tried that, thank you, but it did not work for us.
  
• It's a sensory issue, so it requires a different approach. I appreciate your concern.
  
• That is a typical behavior for Aspie kids, but we are okay with it.
  
• Relax about it.
  
• He'll live.
  
• I'll live.
  
• You'll live.
  
• That concern is on our master list. We are addressing the concern that precedes that one in order to better address the one you speak when the time comes in order to achieve the best outcome for my boy.
  
• In the big picture, we are okay with that. I'm sorry you aren't.
  
• That service is unavailable at the moment/we are wait-listed/it is out-dated/it is not for his particular disorder.
  
• If he doesn't like it, it's okay. I don't like seafood/country music/fleece/spiders/cotton balls. It's okay to have preferences and unique tastes. Its okay to not like certain things and fear stuff. Forcing it on him is not okay. He is an individual. Please respect his boundaries, not just as an Aspie kid, but as a human.
  
• Please re-read what Asperger's Syndrome means for my boy. You obviously missed something important, which is okay because this isn't easy for anyone.
  
• It is really okay for him to not want to hug/be tickled/be touched/have his personal space invaded. It's not you, its him and it will not cause sudden cardiac arrest.
  
• My name is on the birth certificate and he lived inside my body for 10 months (yes 10 months, that 9 month thing is a LIE!), plus I've spent 10 years being his mom, so I am using that power to veto your suggestion and/or assertion.
  
• My child is not just like your child. If he were, he'd be a clone. So far as I know people have not been cloned yet. I'd be happy to parent the cloned version of your child or vice-versa when the technology is available. At that point, we can test your method. Until then, I respectfully decline to try it your way.
  
• Really. If you do not think he needs medication for his ADHD I understand. You go ahead spend the day with him un-medicated, just make sure the first aid kit is stocked and remove any object that can be broken or cause physical damage to a person or my house. As a matter of fact, take him to your house.
  
• You can't convince me that 500 grams of sugar is good for any child. Yes, sugar tastes wonderful, but giving too much to a child is like feeding a Gremlin after midnight. If you are confused, please watch the movie before deciding to give my child a lollipop the size of head and insisting he eat it all in one sitting. (You might want to watch the Exorcist as well.)
  

Somehow I know snarkiness wouldn't be received well, yet it makes me feel better to get it out of my system. Ultimately, I just want my child to have the best support system possible while his dad is having major surgery. I don't want his Asperger's to minimize the fact that this is a scary and overwhelming event for our family, especially the littlest person in it. I appreciate what my family is doing to support us and the kid. With the manual, the kid and acceptance of his specialness come first because without that, no one other than his parents can address his needs. The point in making the Kid Manual is to make this whole process easy for everyone, but most importantly the boy. It's his dad, after all.

Autism Awarness Month

April is coming to a close, which means that all the blogs I read about Autism will stop the whole awareness thing. To me, that's a good thing. Not that the dialogue about autism isn't important, but that I feel as if all the sources I gain valuable insight and awareness from take a vacation to educate the autistic-laymen about very vague and general things.

This hiatus, for the most part, doesn't add anything to my life or my son's life and frankly, based on the comments I hear from outsiders, Autism Awareness Month didn't really educate anyone. I don't blame this on anything in particular, except our society's keenness on packaging all medical disorders into a nice, little, pretty box suitable for a sound-byte here and there or 5 minute blurb on the news.  Five minutes because its an awareness month and they are being generous.

If everything were cancer, it would be so much easier. (That seems to be my new mantra lately because our family is faced with conditions that are complex.) While there are many sorts of cancer, the root of the condition is fundamentally the same. With autism, it has some similar components, but experiences and affects of the condition vary greatly between individuals. The core of condition being fundamentally misunderstood by many, many people.

One core of the pieces is social functioning. What the media tells us is that autistic people lack the ability to empathize and feel emotions. This is incorrect and does a huge disservice to everyone having autism or caring for those affected. Autistic people have emotions, feel emotions and are capable of empathy. What they have is difficulty processing emotions. Social situations and feelings become entirely to intense and overwhelming to deal with, so they shut down. It's system overload, not an absence of a system.

A big, disturbing thing I hear from people is "I hope your son grows out of it". No one grows out of autism. They learn to adapt, learn to cope, and learn to fit into our society (which I'm not sure is inherently good) as best they can. And when an autistic person works their tail off to deal with stigma, bullies, boobs, dummies, bigots, liars and other socially icky but acceptable "normal" people throughout their life, they have to deal with idiots who say things like "you don't seem autistic, you seem normal". Well, duh, because they've worked hard to blend in-- a lot harder than neurotypical people work to be good citizens. (And as far as learning to deal and cope, those social issues aren't the only things autistic people have to work on. There are sensory problems, motor skills, anxiety, depression and a plethora of other components.)

Until these two things are adequately addressed, Autism Awareness is a moot point. Yet, we still take the focus off of helping people with autism to educate our fellow Americans about this grand spectrum. Except we don't talk to many autistic adults. We don't share enough real stories. We don't get the message across that debunks these myths and social stigma. We aren't telling enough people that are not enough services, interventions and supports for families. There are less resources for adults-- but more and more of these autistic children are becoming adults (cause, duh, they don't turn 18 and grow out of it, there is no autistic egg timer that dings when you're done with autism).

I am glad we are going back to non-autism-awareness in May. My only goal is to help my son and educate those around him. It's that act that is going to make people aware. It starts at home and spreads out of doors, into the homes of our friends and family.

Of course, I can't really say what's wrong or right with Autism Awareness Month or what we should be made aware of as well as this person, an autistic person, in this blog: Illusion of Competence.

The Easter Snaik

I never thought about religion much when I was a kid, save for my Irish Catholic BFF's mom, who thought I had the devil in me, God (and hell) talks. My mom was a Lutheran who thought that religion was done wrong in America. So, we weren't any particular religion at all and I got to explore faith any which way I liked. And because I think I screamed so much the few times my mom tried taking me church services and Sunday school that our family was asked to never return. Of course, Easter being what it is, I knew the story of the resurrection and such from my mom and from said BFF (and BFF's mom).

My dad is a funny guy who isn't particularly religious. Growing up, he loved Easter because he always got a box of Whitman's chocolates and tons of other sweets. He HATED dying Easter eggs (aka Spring Spheres), sorta. He really hated the part where young children with excited fingers grabbed at permanent die in our house. If it were up to him, it would have been an 'in the grass at the neighbor's house' activity. I think he died a little inside each Easter and there were times I was surprised he didn't stroke out (like when my nieces and nephew died eggs in their toddler years).

There were several rules when it came to egg dying. These rules were debated passionately by my parents and these debates sometimes ended in threats of divorce. Other times it would end in a snarky kid saying 'Cut it out! We are making eggs for Jesus!'. Why we were making eggs for Jesus, I have no idea. Two-thousands years of hard-boiled eggs has got to wear thin on a Messiah, but then again I suppose he could change them into little cupcakes or whatever trendy snack en vogue (Dear Jesus, I hear doughnuts are the next big thing!).

The first rule is that you must never use copper pans to boil your eggs. Or is it aluminum? This would start the parental debate as my mom would have to prove to my dad that her stock pot contained no offending element, even though she had the same pot for like ever.

The second rule was the Rule of Paas. Never, ever could anything but the ORIGINAL Paas Easter egg dye be used in our house. Period. No tye-dye eggs. No fancy colors. There are 12 (or was it 9?) colors acceptable and those colors were dictated by the Paas people. No Paas dye, no Easter. End of story. I still get a little apprehensive whenever my mother-in-law pulls out something other than the traditional Paas egg dying kit before Easter. We will not tell my dad that my son hasn't ALWAYS used Paas's original kit-- it might kill him.

The final rule was that you must use a white crayon to make the most important egg of them all: The Easter Snaik egg. And yes, its S-N-A-I-K. It was the only time a misspelled word was appropriate and your egg would be spared the infamous Library of Congress red pen (all our pens came from the Library of Congress-- heck, until I was 9, I thought everyone got their pens from the LoC). While my parents corrected my spelling until I was 32 years old, this special and holy spelling spelling of 'snaik' was a crucial part of our Easter tradition-- the Holy Grail of all our holiday celebrations.

So, my dad would draw this 'snaik' in white crayon on an egg and then write the words 'Easter Snaik' underneath (that)**. Yet, this is no ordinary snaik. This snaik has 4 legs with feet, 3 polka-dots and is always smiling, open mouthed with his forked snaik tongue sticking out.

It wasn't until I was much older that I realized the gross contradiction between Easter and the snaik. Later I learned that most of the religious traditions that our culture engages in are actually NOT Christian, but rather have deep pagan roots. Bunnies have nothing to do with Jesus. Eggs are for fertility, celebrated during the Spring Equinox. And as a parent living in a very judeo-christian world, where poking fun at Jesus and religion (or atheism?) isn't readily accepted (unless you are famous and a comedian), my dad found the most amusing ways to poke fun at the inherent contradiction between mono-theism and poly-theism.

This years Easter Snaik Egg

My dad made his point in a way that his children could marvel at (and shock her friends parents at the same time). He made it so we came to love the tradition for the simplest human and most godly reason-- the love of ones family. I have no doubt that God has a sense of humor and is decorating his own Easter Snaik egg with his own son.

 ** If you didn't get that aside, than you obviously don't read Cake Wrecks