Things that make me very, very mad - and sad

I need to vent.

I was just searching through ebay looking for some add on parts for Zach's Mr. Potato Head toy when I ran across something that has totally set me off. Some pea brained idiot seller on ebay has decided to use a disability to help him/her sell some toys. I just can't believe that people can stoop so low. The title of the auction is: "Mr. Potatohead Valentines - Special Needs - Autism" Now anyone familiar with ebay knows that the more descriptive words that you put in your title, the more likely you are to get your auction seen. So in other words, if someone is searching for "Autism" they will see this a-hole's auction, because he/she chose to MARKET a DISABILITY. This is one of the most insensitive things I do believe that I've ever seen. I started to send an email to this person flaming them, but then decided that I would get nothing out of that. How he/she thinks that a freakin' Mr. Potato Head toy, a TOY that every child plays with whether autistic or not, pertains directly or even indirectly to autism is beyond me! Then he/she wrote in the description - "Your child will have hours of fun while working on their fine motor and speech skills." Okay, I get that. And that's fine. She didn't USE a disability there. She just said basically that this can help your kid out. Fine. It's just the use of a disability in the title to help her sell an item not directly related to autism that kills me. Kills me! That's like an auction titled "Clothes pins in all colors - great for autism". How is it the same? Well, autistic kids can learn their colors by watching Mom hang the laundry with these clothes pins. See... stupid!!! SO... all this being said, I am very saddened and even more so raging mad that someone would choose to peddle their crap by belittling a true human disability. Shame.

The other thing making me mad today, and very sad as well, is trying to figure out what is wrong with my boy. He is sick. And any parent of a 4.8 year old should be able to figure out what is wrong (at least a starting point) with their child by asking a few simple questions: Where does it hurt? What hurts? And so on. But that is not the case for us. Zach will not tell us. And sometimes we're not sure that he knows how, or even realizes that if he does tell us then we can help him. Perhaps he thinks it's wrong to feel bad and doesn't want to be in trouble. Or perhaps it's because his tolerance for pain is so very high (as it is strangely enough with most special needs kids) that he just deals with it. So we go in speech circles with him trying to pry out even the littlest bit of information that will help us to help him. And then we battle to get any medicine in him. That may sound common of other kids, but I assure you that it's different. With other kids if they don't listen to your instruction immediately, you can make them. With Zach we can't do that. By "making him" (aka threatening spanking or time out, etc) we're not totally sure that he even understands why he's getting the punishment at all. The fear is that he is just thinking we are being mean to him and doesn't understand why. Because he doesn't understand that we'd be trying to help him with the medicine. And another fear is that he doesn't even understand what sick is and that he is sick in the first place. Very, very frustrating. And sad. And tiring. So I've made a doctor's appointment, and that's all I can do.

Okay, venting complete :-)