Tradition, Honor and Remembrance

Yesterday Mr. Sunday the kids and I made our yearly pilgrimage an hour and a half away to my parents’ home town for the Memorial Day parade.

(That is not us or our kids.)

My mom went there when my grandparents adopted her at 12.

Memorial Day is a loaded Holliday.

My grandparents’ daughter, my aunt drowned in a swimming hole on Memorial Day weekend.

They adopted my mother and her sister soon after.

I remember sitting in my mother’s parent’s yard and watching my father’s father march in the parade with the other WWII vets.

There aren’t many left now.

I started taking my daughter down to watch the parade the year before my grandpa passed. He had moved down south many years before.

We go to catch a glimpse of small town life.

We go because it is our tradition.

We go to remember our history.

We go to honor those men and women who have sacrificed so much for their idea of the American dream.

We go so they know we care.

We go because their sacrifices are important.

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Where The Heart is

Momma’s Happy Place VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Tecumseh, MI

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No Comment

Blogger is acting nutty…still…grr.. I can’t publish. I can’t comment…

I swear I have been reading all of your blogs and had really great insightful and witty comments for all of you….but alas…to no avail…I have been defeated by Blogger. Fiddely-dee, tomorrow is another day. XOXO

I hope they fix it soon.

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Oh, No! She Made the Pom-Pon Team!

After the first two years of having my daughter in school and in completive gymnastics, I began feeling a lot like a pimp, or some kind of wrapping paper and pie pusher. …really I did. I started feeling like all of my friends and “family” were avoiding me and my latest super-duper fundraising order form. And who could blame them, who needs a $20 pie or a $15 roll of wrapping paper anyway?

And honestly what does the school or organization get for all of that pushiness anyway? 5-10 percent?

(Now Little Caesars Pizza-kits that is a different story, altogether….we love those…if you are selling I am buying…well, I would be buying if I had any money)

I quit. When a fund raiser comes around I try to give a few dollars (which is highly confusing to the organizers who have no idea what to do with THAT) and I call it a day. Personally, I call it a win – win situation. They get their money and I get to look my friends in the eye. All good.

Which all brings us to today – I pushed my daughter to go back to the second day of High School Pom-Pom tryouts. She refused to go to the first set of tryouts. When her friends made the squad, she was disappointed that she hadn’t even tried.

Anyway miracle of miracle, they had an odd number or something and opened another Pom tryout for the incoming freshmen. So she put her hair in a pony and gave it a shot…. She came hope sobbing…. “I suck, I have no idea what they are doing. I don’t get it, the kick line is so complicated…I will never get it”…and on and on she went.

Being the stellar mom that I am, I said “honey you can’t be that bad. You have good dance experience from gymnastics. You have your momma’s rhythm, thank goodness, it is a wonder I married your dad anyway. …Poor CoCo…. You just have to go tomorrow and try again. I am sure everyone else is feels exactly the way you are tonight. Auntie D said that CanCan was even feeling a lot like you are, and she made it.”

“But MOM, it is expensive. Remember I had to quit gymnastics because we couldn’t afford it anymore?”

“It’s MUCH cheaper than gymnastics.”

“But it is EXPENSIVE!”

[Here then comes the part where mommy should really read the stuff they send home from school and not just sign it]

“I think I can come up with $150 for pay to play, for a school sport. We are not THAT poor”

“No, mom! It is a school club not a sport! You don’t understand!”

[Well of course I don’t, I’m a mom, and therefore I don’t understand anything , and this is me rolling my eyes and dismissing what she is saying.]

“You just go back and try again tomorrow, after that if you don’t want to do it, I won’t make you. But I think it would be good for you to be doing something. This year you have been out of the gym has been so tough on you I think you need something that you enjoy and that you can feel good about. You do your part and I’ll do mine…that always has been and always be the deal.”

She went back the second day and made it.

She was absolutely right. Pompom is not a school sport. Our districts one hundred and fifty dollar pay to play does not apply. It is $725.00 and $375.00 of it for camp is due yesterday and another $150 for camp uniforms is due in a couple of weeks.

I DO NOT FREAKING HAVE IT!

And I have no more rabbits left in my hat.

Can we all say, “Mommy should have let her give up? I should have let her flounder around in her fear of failure or successes or whatever?” I am never really sure which one it is with her. But no, I am just not built like that.

So if any of you happen to have a couple dollars you would like to donate to the cause of getting my oldest back off my computer, interested in …anything and into an activity where smiling is a requirement, she and I would be truly grateful. And I promise, I will not send you any wrapping paper.

 

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After The Storm

After the initial night of hysterics, my oldest handled her consequences pretty well. Maybe she just needed to know we were going to hold her accountable? Since we are out $400 for a trip that no one took I also decided it was high time she started doing chores around here. I decided she could start loading and unloading the dishwasher and cleaning the bathroom. Mr. Sunday doesn’t “like” the way she does the dishes. I suppose he thinks that men are the only people who do things so poorly that you will never ask them to do it again. Unfortunately it’s just that they are only the ones who do not outgrow it with adolescence.

Now let me just show you what I am dealing with here. When I tell her she has to clean the bathroom she says, “It’s not like you care if it is clean or not. It is always a mess” the way only an almost 13 year old girl can. “Oh, I do care, I do clean it, and I think YOU should experience for yourself what it feels like to clean up after other people, just to have them muck it up within seconds!” I supervised, and stood over her the entire time she was cleaning with helpful instructions. And even when she is at her worst, she is hilarious, singing, “it’s a hard knock life”, while she worked, she still has no idea. No sooner than she finished scrubbing the (white) floor, did her two little sisters come trotting in fresh from their mud hole and hopped their muddy selves into the shower. I couldn’t have planned it any better, that is if I had. As her proud face fell into an expression of exasperation, all I could do is smile, shrug my shoulders and say, “and that is exactly how I have spent the last 12 years – welcome to my world.”

The girl has even asked me to watch old project runway episodes on hulu and do her hair just about every day since we dropped the hammer. Neither has happened in a very long time. Who knows maybe she was she was feeling a little too disconnected to fast. Maybe with limits comes the feeling security. I still don’t think she will be thanking me anytime soon. But I am grateful that we were apparently able to give her what she needed and certainly wasn’t about to ask for.

Can you imagine? “Hey, mom I am nervous about going out of town without you guys and I am not sure I like having so much freedom. You think you could just stick a little closer to me?” That’s not gonna happen but it would sure make the life of a parent much easier.

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Sun, Fun and Ice Cream

I think we can add sunscreen to the list of things that break Amélie out in hives. Thankfully she has Mr. Sunday’s coloring, Miss CoCo is not so fortunate.

Grateful to see the sun at last, my little girls have been outside from sun up to sun down.

CoCo likes to make shadow hand puppets, she is pretty clever.

Can you hear Amé screaming for CoCo to get out of the umbrella from there?

They are sisters… best friends. They will leave an indelible mark on each other’s lives…

And backs apparently.

 

The ice cream man came by the other day.

So, Mr. Sunday asked me, “who took the picture?”

Um, so those of you who know me in real life probably have no idea why I was aghast. Bless her sweet heart my neighbor has 20 years and several a few dress sizes on me and the obvious my hair is RED! But that’s ok, I’m just gonna tag him as the stud with the plumber’s crack and knee socks. I am sure his high school sweethearts on FaceBook will be kicking themselves over what could have been all theirs. Right?

“Don’t touch my hair!”

This made me think of LT, I hope she is feeling better!

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CoCo Speaks

 

Madeline is so happy she can finally come up with her name!

And to think she didn’t speak at all until well after two.

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Mad’s Poem about Coco

Coco

Rosy cheeks flush in the warmth
Her chubby legs move quickly and unevenly
Trying to keep up with her mind
Her head up with determination
Blue eyes shining like jewels
Her dimples flash as she smiles bright like Sirius in the night sky
Though they disappear when you say "good night"
Her cute button nose sits in the middle of her round face
Her short blonde curls bounce as she walks
Her words not always clear, sometimes squished together
Her giggles fill the air as her sister chases her around the well kept yard
She teeters on her feet and falls
Salty tears stream down her face, but stop as soon as they start
She looks and acts an average three year old
You would never guess her disabilities

And neither would she

Madeline Z. Taylor ©2011

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We Don't Belong To No One That's a Shame

John Rzeznik

And even though the moment passed me by I still can't turn away
I saw the dreams you never thought you'd lose tossed along the way
Letters that you never meant to send lost or thrown away

And now we're grown up orphans that never Knew their names
Don't belong to no one that's a shame
You could hide beside me maybe for a while
I won't tell ‘em your name

And I won't tell no one your name

Scars are souvenirs you never lose , the past is never far
Did you lose yourself somewhere out there , did you get to be a star
Don't it make you sad to know that life is more that who we are

You grew up way too fast and now there's Nothing to believe
And reruns all become our history
A tired song keeps playing on a tired radio
And I won't tell no one your name
I won't tell ‘em your name

I think about you all the time
But I don't need the same
It's lonely where you are come back down
And I won't tell ‘em your name

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Parenting Sucks Sometimes

My child is not In Chicago with her orchestra class today. All along we told her that her being able to go on this trip was dependent on having all of her work turned in for algebra. Wouldn’t you know, mom just had to check her grades yesterday morning on family access. How like me can I be? Because of course she had been doing so much better these last few weeks. That is right up until a day before the trip, when her teacher decided to enter the last two weeks of grades, forcing us to have to decide whether or not we would have to follow through on what we said.

Sheesh! Why did I even look? Weeks and weeks of MUCH better effort on her part and two missing assignments, are you kidding me? We had given her chance after chance and she was so close. I even called the school and had her call me before lunch and told her if she could get them turned in and the teacher could get me an email saying she did we would let her go. She tried but it just didn’t happen.

This was one of the hardest things I have faced as a parent. We debated ways we could rationalize sending her. She had tried, that effort was worth something that is for sure. But, we said what we said. And all I kept thinking is she will start high school next year, if she can’t trust us to say what we mean and mean what we say, how on earth are we ever going to get her through the next four years?

The last thing I ever want as a parent is for my children to miss out – on anything. But here she is $400 dollars later, sleeping in her own bed while her BFFs are tucked in somewhere in Chicago, giggling and not getting enough sleep. Meanwhile I am hoping we made the right call. My guess is we may not know the answer to that one for years.

Why does parenting have to suck so much sometimes?

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Scars Are Souvenirs You Never Lose

…The past is never far.

 

Warmer weather means short sleeves. Short sleeves mean exposing myself, my pain and my past to the world. It has been over 20 years since I put blade to skin, 20 years, since I have I have sought to relieve internal pain by bringing it out to the surface where it could be seen, and felt. 20 years and I still carry the marks of my past. My brand, my survivors tattoo, the sign to myself and the world that something went terribly wrong here, and I will never forget.

And we should never forget. The pain you inflict on a child lives in them forever. The pain lives on, whether they wear in on their sleeves or carry in their hearts, it lives on.

Sometimes I forget that they are there. I can go months without giving it much thought…but they remain, 20 years later... are still there…for all to see.

 

(I accidently published this post here instead of over at Our Foster Family Tree, after much thought I decided to let it stand here as well.  This is who I am.  This is my life…All of it.  This is PTSD, this how much abuse, neglect, abandonment and foster care can hurt)

Since I have decided to out myself here, I decided to add this post to Band Back Together’s Post Busting Mental Health Stigma’s and Taking Names - I am Sunday Koffron Taylor, I am the face (and arm) of PTSD. I am no longer ashamed.

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No More Foster Kid Fairy Tails

Hey Y’all, I am guest blogging over the Declassified Adoptee today, please stop by and read my not so cheery thoughts on National Foster Care Month.

I think it is time we stop selling our foster kids short with pipe dreams of happily ever after fantasies. What do you think?

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Helpin’

CoCo is finally starting to enter her “independent” phase.

She took it upon herself to put the silverware away for me. 

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May is National Foster Care Month

I should be blogging about it.

I am having a hard time coming up with a post.

It all seems so sad and hopeless for so many of our foster kin.

Especially for the older kids who flounder year after year, placement after placement, school after school in a system that is based on being temporary.

There aren’t enough good foster families.

We don’t do enough to support original families.

There are not enough suitable families willing to adopt from this country’s foster care system.

And for all of this it is the kids who suffer.

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A Happy Mother’s Day

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Amélie Asks Some Doozies

Amélie asked, “What did you buy your mother for Mother’s Day?”

“Nothing” I said.

“Why not?”

What am I supposed to say to that?

(she has only seen her a couple of times in her life.)

“Well, honey she really didn’t take very good care of me.”

What are we supposed to tell our kids? Exactly how honest are we supposed to be?

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Ugh, It Is That Dreaded Time of Year

…again.

In honor of Mother's Day, I'm changing my profile picture to a photo of my mom until May 9. If you like this idea, please change your profile picture to one of your mom. Please repost this as your status so everyone gets the word, and let's see how many beautiful mothers we can get on FB

Facebook

That’s right, Mothers Day.

Don’t get me wrong, I certainly don’t begrudge any of my friends having mothers that that they adore and want to honor. Heck, for that matter without some of those mothers I would have no clue as to what I am supposed to be doing here.

 

But who would I be changing my profile to? 

Linda?  Yeah, she tried for a while.  Technically she is my mother. I have some memories of her before the divorce attempting to DO the things she thought a mother might do. I clearly do not remember any emotion, other than resentment attached to those motherly actions. I do not ever remember her being a mothering or nurturing influence in my life. I wish I did, but I don’t. It just wasn’t there.

After she came back for us we were treated as accessories, or rather, baggage. We were dragged along on her adventures, her meetings, to coffee with her friends. She even us trotted out in the middle of the night to sleep on some strangers couch during her “dates'”. She said she had children because she wanted to be loved. It was true, it hadn’t worked as well as she hoped, she resented it and we knew it.

She has her reasons for being the way she was. She was abused, neglected and abandoned. She expected her own children to feel and be as obligated to her as her foster and adoptive parents expected of her. But she also had plenty of opportunities to do things differently, we always have choices.

My sister Amy?  Who has always tried to take care of us.

Patti?   The worlds greatest nanny, who did the best she could to take care of us and protect us from our parent’s games of revenge at the young age of nineteen.

Linda Q?  My “Surrogate Mother” and teacher extraordinaire from AHC.

Joyce?  She was what we called my one on one, my personal staff who was supposed to be responsible for my case. She is easily one of the most influential people in my life…ever. She gave me power, she made me see myself the way she saw me, worthy, strong, capable and responsible for my own actions. She subtly acknowledged my anger, understood my indignation and gave me permission to expect to be treated with respect regardless of anyone’s title. Not to say that i absorbed and lived those lessons immediately, but they were there swimming around to be drawn on when I was ready.

 

My Momma?  Well if I were going to change my profile picture in honor of Mother’s Day it would be to hers. 

From the day we met until the day she left here, she had no obligation to me what-so-ever, but she never let that stand in her way. Her door was always open; there were always a kind word and encouragement, somewhere to lay my head and something good on the stove and I was loved…Always.

Always. Angry Sunday…Always. Sad Sunday…Always. AWOL Sunday…Always. Slutty Sunday…Always. Drunk Sunday…Always. Homeless Sunday…Always. Shit-together Sunday…Always. Always.

I won’t be changing my profile picture in honor of mother’s day, but I won’t mind at all if you do.

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What’s For Dinner

I walked in just walked in from work and Amélie says,

"Dad you need to make mom dinner!"

Mr. Sunday says, "I did make her dinner, it's right there."

"No, not DINNER - THINNER, her tummy is to big!"

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The Final Maze: Kicking a Foster Kid When She is Down

She is at it again.  This time FosterAbba has decided to contemplate if a fellow foster care alumnus blogger would be better off dead:

But I look at her suffering now, as an adult, and it seems so extreme.  It's clear LT suffers immensely, and I sometimes wonder if the system would have been kinder not to intervene, and to let her die as a child, than to put her through that horror, only to subject her to even more emotional neglect, physical abuse and trauma as she was bounced around the foster care system.
Is she better off for having been "saved" by the foster care system?
I can't answer that question for LT.  She's the only person who can measure the value of her own life.  What I can say, though, is that I see many kids who are failed by the foster care system, and a lot of unnecessary suffering.
So if there wasn't a foster care system, and the government didn't get involved in people's personal lives, what would happen?
Sure some kids would die.  But they are already dying.

FosterAbba

Needless to say LT is very hurt and I am appalled! But at least this time she had the decency to create a link to LT’s blog, but I suppose that served her agenda. That is how those personalities operate.

Anyone who knows me in real life knows I can’t stand bullies. I feel a very strong kinship to my fellow foster care system survivors, fvck with them and you fvck with me. She has gone too far with this one and it is inexcusable.

Only a bully would call someone out by name in a post, and then moderate their comments and not answer emails from the subject of your public wonderings.

Sometimes she is so over-the-top I feel like we are all being punked, and the joke is on us. Sometimes with the way she is always talking about being investigated my CPS and how she is sure she will be again, I think she really hopes they will come take her crappy child away so she can wash her hands of the whole mess of the adopting a kid thing. She just wants it to be clear it is not her fault, it is the system’s because the kid would have been better off dead anyway.

  I left her this comment, which she may or may not publish:

I do not say this lightly…that you as a Jew would publically contemplate the ‘value’ of another human (by name no less)/ or class of humans (foster children), and that you, as a Jew would argue that maybe others should just stand by inactive and mute to the suffering, torture and deaths of other human beings, because they would be left living with pain and trauma, I find disgraceful and embarrassing. I guess when you said in that post that you had lost your religion, you were not kidding.

By your faulty reasoning they allies should have just left your/our people in the concentration camps and let the Nazis sort them out to save them from the pain of PTSD and the shame of their tattoos or whatever burden you feel makes a life not worth living or saving.

For someone who is always carrying on about “internet bullies”, it is amazing how well you fit the bill. Calling out an obviously struggling, occasionally suicidal 20 something year old that was just hit a car, and implying that she is better off dead is certainly kicking some while they are down. I find it even more disturbing that you included your own adopted child who lives in your home in the in the maybe better off dead category. That is a bit scary.

I truly hope you seek some help, as from your writings you are clearly very disturbed and suffering from some kind personality issues/disorders yourself.

Feel free to pack up that defective child who has failed to fulfill your needs and send her my way, I value all human life equally.

Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day. Let us never forget.

Now I need to wash my hands of FosterAbba and be done with her mess.  I am done feeding into Foster Abba’s nonsense, or giving her the attention she obviously, so desperately craves.

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I Felt It Before I Saw It

Yep, that is a toad sitting behind the door handle of my van…I screamed…and jumped…and made my husband come get it.  I am ok with frogs…and toads (goodness knows I have kissed quite a few of the proverbial sort, that is.) Blame my Reactive Adrenalin Disorder…But I HATE surprises…

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They Are The Moons Shining Over Me

When I think back on my life and how I not only survived the darkness that shrouded much of my childhood and a chunk of my young adulthood, I know that it was that I was incredibly blessed by having many mothers and many moons that shown over me.

This morning my family and I drove down to Corktown in Detroit to meet a couple of those moons for a nice breakfast.

Friends I had not seen in many years. Too many.

Sometime not long after I aged out of the foster care system I found myself at the doorstep of St. Peter’s Inn, a homeless shelter for young women ages 17 to 21 housed in St Peter’s Episcopal Church. I was young, angry and lost. I can’t really say I found myself during the time I spent there, but I did get a lot of help and made some very good friends.

Fr. John was the head of the congregation housed in the building, was always jolly, never failed to invite us to vespers and was always one of my greatest cheerleaders. Lydia was one of the shelter administrators. She always treated as if we were her own children, struggling with coming of age, respecting us as people, offering gentle council, always encouragement and somehow never came off as judgmental. How she managed to pull that off, I will never know. (And of course I met my good friend Ang There too.)

Years after I left the shelter of St. Peter’s Inn, (now Alternatives For Girls and housed in another building thanks to an Oprah’s Angel Network donation) Mr. Sunday and I returned to the little church on The Corner Of Trumbull and Michigan Ave. to say our “I dos”. You know, the wedding where everyone stood around talking about how they thought it would have been more likely that they would have all gotten together for my funeral than my wedding.

Now I couldn’t go getting hitched without going home and having my old buddy Fr. John preside over the rituals, could I?

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