Comedy Through The Chaos: They Won't EAT Everything

I look glowy. Geez, too much blush. Hello. Hello everybody. Happy Thanksgiving to you if you celebrate. If not, happy Thursday to you. If it's not either of those things, happy whatever day it is that you are joining us. I hope that the day is treating you well. If not, shame on it. Not shame on you. I am Ms. Shannon Paul. I'm a variety of word related things like a comedian and a corporate speaker and a voice actor and a vet MC and a benefit auctioneer and a variety of things like that. But I also am the proud parent, an adorable 17 year old boy who happens to be high supports on the autism spectrum.

And we are celebrating Thanksgiving. I'll say hi. Hi. Hi. So there are a variety of Thanksgiving related things that I made that I know that he is not going to eat. Hello Emily. Good to see you. I'm talking about a variety of things that are going on over here at our house. It is good to see you. So hopefully things are appropriately chaotic in your world. They are appropriately chaotic here. I think it's interesting if you have a family where you're hanging out with a friend that has special needs, then you might get accustomed to doing things a little bit differently.

Happy Thanksgiving to you as well. So I have a lot of pans here. I have a very fortunate that when I moved here to Minnesota, my mom and my two younger sisters moved as well. So my sisters were over until a couple of minutes ago. And I have a duplex and my middle sister Casey, who also helps me out with my son a lot, lives on the other side of the duplex. And then my son and I live on this side. And our baby sister lives a city or two north of here. And so she came over with our niece Layla, her daughter, who is five.

And so I think that this is an interesting day because Thanksgiving, especially here in the States has such a here's how it's supposed to go down thing. Like I think we all, if you're of a certain age, grew up having an expectation because you would see it and sitcoms and all of these things of what the day is going to be like and those things get imprinted on us and then they don't end up absolutely being that way. Like, you know, unfortunately our mom, because of some mental wellness challenges that she deals with, does not choose to join us on Thanksgiving, which has been kind of a hard transition over the last few years.

My sisters, I end up pretty much, we'll call it host because my kid is not in a very portable mood usually to go to Somebody else's place. So I end up spending the time cooking over here. And then I think it's interesting because people ask me a lot, you know, what's his favorite Thanksgiving food? And he's not into any of this, you know, and, you know, kind of thing. So I made him a couple of things. But to him, it's a day, you know, it's another day. You know, for the most part, he and I are doing things that we would do on a particular day.

And it's. It's not necessarily a day that he holds in greater import than any other day that he has in his life. And I share that to sign up, to put people in perspective that if this is an important day for you, cool. If it's a day that's really difficult for you for a variety of reasons, you know what? That's cool too. You don't have to Thanksgiving the way anybody else Thanksgiving. If these times of years are complicated for you, like, I know they're complicated for me because it's okay. What's our version of normalcy?

What are we doing? What are we leaning into? What part of it does he really like? Like, he likes Christmas, but that's easier to explain than Thanksgiving. And why we should have this practice of gratitude. So if you have someone in your family who may not be as stereotypically gracious as you would like, hey, I'm applauding you for going ahead and working around things in a way that make most sense for you and hopefully releasing you from the idea of living up to a manufactured expectation that may not fit for you or your family.

Do what you need to do. And you know what, if you're looking around going, I thought they loved these mashed potatoes and they don't want it, it's okay. There's going to be a lot of opportunities for them to go ahead and try their own stuff. And you know, trust me, they're not going to eat it all. As I said, they're not gonna eat it all. I can show you a plate that we gave a five year old that we're lucky that she tried any of the two new things. And for my kiddo, I made him his normal lunch, gave him a piece of pie.

See, if you try that, he appropriately told me, no pie. So if you're in a no pie mood, enjoy it. If you want some Mac and cheese and you're in the area, feel free to swing on through. We are here for you in the way that you need us to share. We are trying our best as we continue to build this community to to have it be malleable, have it be personal and have it be hopefully at your fingertips when you need to float through here and learn some things and look for a certain thing. Hopefully we're here to help you feel a little bit more supported and scaffolded as much as possible.

So hopefully the day is treating you well. I will be back here on Saturday joining you as well. Some more chaosis in the thing. I'm going to show you one picture before I go. Emily. So I don't know if you heard the initial story about the giant pile of wood chips that I got when it was still summer here in Minnesota. Well, I was not successful in completely distur distributing all of the wood chips and I knew that that may happen. So now it's going to look like this for a while. So I have a sled hill in my driveway and I'm cool with that.

So whatever little hills you have in your life, trust me, be cool with it. You'll figure out a use for it. So see you guys on Saturday. Be well, treat yourself well because the universe may not do it for you. Appreciate you.