Love those kids (no matter what!)

Last week I was reading an article about a new drug that was having some quantifiable success in treating those afflicted with milder forms of Aspergers Syndrome. This is the disorder where the suffers have problems picking up subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) social clues from people with whom they share a planet and cannot make eye contact without some personal discomfort. I know a few of these folks myself. They're called Investment Bankers (badda bum bum bum - cymbal crash).

But seriously, there are some out there for whom this is a very real issue. And those with real issues are generally on the hunt for solutions to those issues. People trying for solutions will oftentimes try a whole myriad of things that others might find surprising. Speaking for myself and others in my MS Club - we have seen so many interesting things. The therapeutic bee-sting therapy immediately leaps to the forefront. You gotta wonder a) who thought that bee stings might be helpful and b) who'd you convince to try it out the first time? But it merely illustrates that people try lots of amazingly bizarre stuff to get some relief.

In this particular case, it was an example of some doctors identifying a drug used for something else to see if it would work on Aspergers. A team of researchers amassed a group of willing Aspergers patients to see what would happen when they put the two together. And lucky for those patients, this trial did not entail a small room with bunches of angry yellow-jackets and a great deal of exposed skin. Nope this test only required them use a little nasal spray.

Turns out that in the end there was some scientific evidence that this stuff actually made some measurable differences. The patients were more socially interactive after inhaling the concoction for a period of time. This is nice for the Aspergers gang.

Yet, the article that went on to extol the virtues and future possibilities for this drug mentioned briefly that this prodigious potion was originally developed to increase maternal instincts in mothers suffering from postpartum depression. Who knew this was going on? Who knew that there was a bunch of money being spent on a nasal spray that would make you be a more loving mother? Who knew that this particular affliction was actually getting some serious funding (probably from some nearly bankrupt federal or state coffers)? Now here's some money being spent wisely.

Forget the funding for all the other stuff that goes on. Save the whales, save those trees, elementary school education, California State's crumbling university system. Whatever. Here's something all of us mothers could use. This has REAL practical everyday uses. The application to the real Aspergers Syndrome appears to just be lucky coincidence.

Sure, postpartum depression is a terrible thing. And, it's nice that there's someone trying to help. But really? The real audience here, nay, the perfect and heretofore previously unaddressed marketing segment is just your regular everyday mom. No kidding. This is HUGE.

No longer will you need to actually control yourself when you are around your screaming, whining getting-under-your-last-nerve kids. It'd be like having your own personal little morphine pump in a handy-dandy asthma inhaler. Kids are on the verge of getting the proverbial diamond-backhand? Take a deep whiff and suddenly they're fricken wonderful again in your rose colored world. Boys bickering endlessly? Simply suck down a puff and damn! Aren't they just the cutest little nose miners you ever did see? Love 'em, love 'em. love 'em.

Nanny 911 is soon to be outta business. What need is there for a time-out system when your kids can't do anything that would make you want to use it? Future applications could simply be an implant that would release this stuff in a time-elapsed formula. You'd be happy all the damn time. So what if the cat is spinning from the ceiling fan and puking all over the dining room?

Like I said - huge. Ginormous. Sign. me. up!