Normality

What is it to be normal?  Is there such a thing?

Growing up in the family that I grew up in and now living in the one I now have I wonder if any one is truly normal.

The definition of normal according to the dictionary is 1.  of the regular or usual kind 2.  of average intelligence or development 3.  free from sickness of body or mind.

Now I would have to ask how much of the population would fit into those categories?  So the true normal is to be abnormal as far as the population is concerned.

Do you remember when you used to have sleepovers at a friends house and you used to think about how strange  some of the the things were the other family would do?  Or when you go to work, you look at one of you coworkers and wonder how they were ever able to get a mate when they are so goofy?  And so on.... 

This leads me to take a look at my own very special family.  We are a multi cultural family, so I am sure you can imagine the difference of opinion as to what normal is in our family.  Just for an example something as small as answering a phone.  When I grew up you always answered the phone by saying "Hello", then the person on the other line would ask for the person who they wanted to speak with, or you would have a conversation of some sort and say good bye.  Not my husbands family.  When they answer the phone it is "What", "Ya", or "Hu".  If they are the one calling, they state who or what they want.  If that person is not home at the time or you can not do what they want, then CLICK, the phone is hung up.  No need for good bye.  The way I grew up that would be very rude, the way they grew up no need for niceties.  It still kills me how different his family is than mine in so many ways.  Another example being, even though my husband and I had been married for years, my mother-in-law refused to call my daughter and I by our names.  My daughter was always the girl and I was always called wife.  To this day I am not sure why this is.  The differences really came out when my husband and I had our first child together.  We had a baby girl and my mother-in-law insisted upon babysitting her.  Now you would think that this would be the perfect setup.  Who better to watch your child than a loving grandmother?  Well, I was encouraged to breast feed my daughter for health reasons (she was born with a blood issue that the doctors did not know what it was at the time), and she had allergies.  My mom-in-law would dump out the breast milk and put in cows milk, because the doctors and I were stupid and she knew better.  Here kids were raised on cows milk and they were fine.  She would also give her hard candy.  That would scare the crap out of me.  But to her that was a normal thing to do when a baby cried.  Finally I told my husband that we were going to have to get jobs on two different shifts because I was terrified that one day I was going to find out that my baby chocked on something had a reaction, her nose was peirced or her head was shaved.  I told him that even though that is what they do to babies where you are from, I am not comfortable with that for our child.

But then again, my poor husband had to get used to my family too.  It is custimary for my family to tease the new person that is brought into the family.  Our family celibrates birthdays and holidays and we have family getothers on these ocasions.  Also big difference in food preferences. 

Now I look at myself, am I normal?  Not by the deffinition presented above.  Yes, I have a head, body, two arms, two legs, all my fingers and toes, but I am dyslexic, I have SID, arthritis, migrains, along with other health issues.  All these things make me abnormal.

Now lets look at my husband.  He is a man, need I say more?  Seriously, he is dyslexic, he has OCD, and he has an adictive personality along with AM issues.  This would make him fall into the abnormal catigory.

My oldest daughter.  She is mulatto, above average in inteligence, over weight, and very social. This puts her into the abnormal catigory.

My second daughter has OCD (for those of you that do not know, that stands for Obsesive Compolsive Disorder).  She also has SID (Sensory Intigation Disfunction or Sensory Processing Disorder).  Again not normal.

My son has SID, dyslexia, speach problems, scoliosis, and some other health issues that the dr has not been able to diagnose.  Not normal.

My last and final son.  has SID, speach problems, and at age 7 still pinches my elbow as his lovey.  Now that is not normal!

(my kids did not attach to blankets or stuffed animals as babies, they attached to parts of my body.)

So no one in my family is normal and probably if you take a look at yours and where you came from you will find the same.

But everyday my husband and I go to work, our kids go to school, and despite all of our adnormalities we function quite well in this normal world made up all you other abnormal people.