Cuz we know how to Party!

The birthday season is now upon us.  I say this because in a matter of two weeks, we know 8 people that have birthdays.  And not just people, family people, such as our baby, our God son, my father-in-law and his twin brother, our niece, etc.  We go nuts with birthday parties for a two weekend span.  For the last couple of years; however, we have stayed low on the party matter because our oldest son would never behave well around a lot of people.  We didn't know it was Asperger's at the time, so we just made up some excuse as to why he would behave this way and we would try to avoid such circumstances.  Since his diagnosis, we have tried to not do this, knowing the more exposure to these things the better.  Our first real party experience since the diagnosis was for our God son 3rd birthday party.  It was at our good friends house, whose house my son is very comfortable at, so we felt it was a good start.  He loves her sons, and knows that there is a play room with a train table that he loves to play.  In essence he had an escape room if he needed it.  After telling him the schedule change of the party all day, it was finally time to go, and we were ready to party.....

Upon arriving, I grabbed our oldest and my hubbie had the baby and the presents and away we went.  Our oldest had his head buried in my shoulder and had a death grip around my neck.  In my race to get to the door to keep the blood supply following to my head, my knee hit this pretty solar light that my friend had on her walk way.  My husband tried to fix the light but had so much in his hands he knocked the light further down.  After some premium curse words, he set down the light fixture and said, "Ayy, Mike will have something to do now."  This should have been a foreshadowing for the party ahead, because that was just the start of the Lohr contributions to the party!

Upon our arrival in the house, everyone started saying hello to us.  My aspie raced right for the toy room, with baby in tow behind him.  We let them go while we talked to our friends and to greet the birthday boy.  Once we saw everyone, we went to check on our boys.  Our oldest and the baby had already took off their jackets and started to play with the trains.  The birthday boy and his baby brother ran in to see our boys and excited shrills of yelling started.  "SHUT UP!!!"  yells our aspie with his hands over his ears.  The noise was killing him.  Without even noticing it, the three little ones went running out of the room, with our aspie shutting the door behind them.  We explained to him that he had to leave the door open but he could stay in the room.  We went back to the party leaving my aspie to play.  My husband kept checking on him trying to encourage him to go out and join the kids.  He decided to go into my friend's master bedroom knowing that she had Toy Story recorded on her DVR.  After asking her to play it, she got him situated and we left him alone.  When I went to check on him, I was shocked at what I found. He was sitting in their bed, like a king, eating from the largest bin of cheese balls you have ever seen.  I being taken back by my site, said, "Where did you get those?"  Over there, he points to my friend party refresher stash.  I don't think you were suppose to eat those honey and especially not in her bed, as I was trying the inevitable task of sweeping off the cheese ball yellow dust that was coated EVERYWHERE!  "He's fine" my friend says as she enters the room.  This was all my aspie had to hear.  "I'm fine" he says.  Oh crap I think, I am going to have to buy her a new bed spread because there is no way this one will get clean.  I leave to return to the party to find yet another issue emerging.

For some reason, I have heard the comment, "Someone stinks" more than I have ever wanted.  Those words were spreading like wildfire throughout the party and everyone was checking their little ones for a stinky butt.  I knew though that it had to be mine.  The way he was swaggering through the house eating his cup-o-cheese balls with out a care in the world, spreading his stank as he went, gave me the first clue.  After all the other moms checked their babies butts, it was time for me to face the music.  And of course, I picked the short straw with the stinky butt.  I took him into my God son's room to attack the poop beast and my hubs entered to see if I needed help....and boy did I need it.

If you are parent, I am sure you have experienced this.  If you are not but are hoping to be a parent one day, skip this section.  It will make you not want to be, or read it and use it as a good form of birth control for a few more years.  Okay, so a poop bomb went off in my precious baby's diaper.  It was the type of bomb that caused poop to go up his back, down his legs and into his socks.  It was the type of poop that smelt so bad, it could gag a maget, and so sticky that it made his shirt stick to his back everywhere it touched.  It was the type of poop where I stare at it for a minute or two trying to figure out my plan of attack.  Really?  Now,  at the party?!  My husband had his shirt over his nose in a bandito style gas mask as he was commenting on the smell.  Well, lets get bags to put everything in before we start he suggests just as my friend enters the room with bags.  She could smell the duty clear in the kitchen and figured we wanted some trash bags for the dirty diaper.  She barely made it in the room when she started laughing going, "Pee-UUUU, that reaks!  Wow does that stink!"  And everything else you can think of with the hand gestures to match.  I mean this poop had a smell like no other.  I started to roll up his shirt to keep the poop inside and get it over his head.  My baby starts to fuss because he had to pause eating his cheese balls for the two seconds as I took his shirt off.  After cleaning off his back, I started to tackle his pants, socks and shoes.  Each article of clothing was strategically placed into a shopping bag, tied up and then put in a large bag to contain the smell.  After all clothing was removed my husband took the bag to our car.  And then, the diaper.  Every inch of the inside of the diaper and half of the outside was covered in the smelliest poop ever.  Have you ever heard of the thousand wipe poop?  You know, the poop where you just keep wiping and it you just can't get it completely clean?  Well, this was one!  I just kept wiping and cleaning and wiping and cleaning, it seemed endless. My hubs returned holding another bag opened while I kept wiping. My aspie was in the room now because the baby was crying because he had run out of cheese balls.  My aspie starts yelling at me for making the baby cry and tackles his Daddy for help.  Right about the time my hubs gets our aspie calmed down I finished up on the baby.  My husband looks at me laughing singing our party song when we are having a really good time, "Ain't no party, like a Lohr party, cuz a Lohr party don't stop!"  Then busting into his best beat box rhythm we both do some sort of great 80's dance and we laughed.  Only all these things could happen to the crazies!  After our dance, my hubs opens the door and the baby runs back into the party in only a diaper.  My hubbie follows announcing to the people in the kitchen, that "its not a party until someone gets naked!" 

It was time to cut the cake and sing the birthday song once our poop smell cleared out.  Our aspie being aware there would be singing was already hiding in the play room, but I had our baby near the cake.  Everyone started singing, and my baby started screaming and crying.  Images of cake smashing came racing through my brain so I immediately ran out of the room with baby in arms.  So the Lohr family spent the rest of the song and cake cutting time sitting in the play room playing trains.  After we got some cake, my aspie started to get brave.  He made a quick lap around the joint walking quickly with his head down.  A few minutes later, he walked into the living room where all the other kids were and left immediately.  He did this a few times more, until finally he stayed and walked over next to me.  Unfortunately, it was at the wrong time though.  Our baby had found an audience to entertain and he was gaining a crowd.  Now at least clothed from some borrowed clothing, my baby was doing his best attempts at gymnastics like forward rolls and such.  People were laughing and clapping and making over him which made him keep doing it over and over.  This infuriated my aspie, "Stop shouting!!!  Stop making noise!!!  Be quiet!!!!! he started screaming over and over and over again.  He was so mad, with his arms down next to his side with fist clenched.  I couldn't even get him out of the room he was so mad he just kept yelling.  I knew he wasn't going to overcome this and so did my husband since he had coats in hand when he walked into the room.  My friend was trying to talk to him and get him his treat bag but he just yelled at her too.  So we got their coats on and got them into the car with the help of our friends. 

We were driving home, pretty silently not knowing how to take the outcome of our first party.  It was our aspie that had that answer for us.  He said, "That was a fun party! What stinks in here?"  I looked at my husband, started laughing and we drove home talking about the party for the rest of the trip with our shirts over our face bandito style.

***Thank for reading and as always, do the whole Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest thing for more short updates on our crazy family!****