My super Hero Name - Foster Girl

Some times I long for old-fashioned gender roles – like when something electrical needs to be rewired, or plumbing needs to be reassembled or when my husband is pointing to the huge hairy spider he would like me to kill for him….

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Calling All Lurkers and Readers

According to a few of the blogs I read today is national de-lurking day. Lurkers in blog-speak are people who read but don't follow publicly or comment, which is just fine and totally awesome! But today is the day that we ask our Lurkers to come out of the bloggy closet and leave a comment.

You don't have to sign in, you can just use your name, email address (won't be shown publicly, it doesn't even have to be real), and your blog address if you have one, so readers can be linked back to your blog. *if you are a blogger, don't forget to check the commentluv box, and enter your blog address again to create a link to you most recent post.

So, whether you comment all the time or this is your first, please - Stand Up and tell us about YOU!

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Dearest Kevin You are with God in Heaven

After the loss of her 3 year old nephew, Allie over at the Fresh Confessions of a Screwed up Texan is sharing the story and asking for some help for her brother and his family. Please stop by and show some her some support. I, like Allie stated, have only caught a small glimpse of what Kevin’s parents are going threw, and I cannot even begin to imagine their heartache.

Dearest Kevin You are with God in Heaven

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Just Nod And Move On!

Of all things!  I came in from shopping, my family was “starving”, and so before I did any thing including taking off my coat I turned on the oven washed the potatoes and quickly popped them in the oven.  Wouldn’t you know…the top of the oven melted a hole in my only winter coat.  

My black down coat, luckily (I guess) the shell was two layers, so it only burned the outer black one and left the inner white liner containing the feathers in tact. Instead of a useless coat with feathers spewing out of it I have a very “useful” black down coat with a very obvious white hole on the right sleeve.  

Not much inspires me to tears, I am ashamed to say, it was more than I can take!  

Sure I can break my wrist and barely even notice.  I can find out my toddler does in fact have brain damage, and I can relegate those tears to one day and move on.  My husband can take off to Alaska leaving me alone with three kids for three months on two days notice and I can pop a couple of Xanax and deal.  I can be a single, working, homeschooling mother 5 days a week for months on end, cause I am built like that.

I can sacrifice.  When I make grilled cheese and somebody has to end up with the heals, its me, cause that is how it is supposed to be.  (It used to be CoCo because she didn’t know the difference, but her older sisters ruined that one for me.)  I haven’t gotten my eye brows done in so long I am beginning to bare a striking resemblance to Freda Kahlo.  OK, I can sacrifice; I am a mom that is my job. 

But the thought of wearing a coat with a gaping hole in the sleeve is more than I can stand.  The only thing more embarrassing would wearing a coat with black electrical tape on the sleeve (Mr. Sunday’s brilliant solution).  So if you see me on the street just ignore my tear stained face, don’t expect me to wave, don’t offer me your hand to shake. I will be walking around with my arm behind my back (ala Napoleon), so you will not see my shame…Just nod your salutations and move on.   

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This Must Stop!

More on the use of restraint, this is a video featured in the Huffington post  Child In City Custody Has Arm Broken By Staff (VIDEO) I am hoping that because there seems to be some real discussion about the use of physical restraint on kids in foster care that we as a society are coming into a new understanding of children’s right and that we will no longer tolerate these unwarranted assaults on children just because they are unwanted, thrown away, adopted, emotionally challenged, autistic or have other special needs and or are in foster care or the juvenile justice system.  It is inexcusable to physically attack a child throw them down on the ground and kneel on him, let alone break their arm when they were NOT being combative!  Really, there is NO EXCUSE! 

For a parents perspective please check out Lee’s post at Families R Built With Love.  About how she and her wife were advised to use “therapeutic restraint” on her autistic son, how that worked for them and her feelings on it now.  I found it very thoughtful and honest. 

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A Tragic Result of a Failure to Act

Angellika Arndt

Some of you may have read the guest post I did for SweetButterBliss about “therapeutic restraint”, so you may know that this subject is one very close to my heart.  Please take a moment and read Dr. Jean Mercer’s post When Restraint Should Be "Prescription Only", this is a very important issue in the adoption, foster care worlds and children’s rights in general.  

“Deaths like Angellika’s are a rare but very possible result of the use of physical restraint by professional caregivers whose actions are poorly supervised and regulated, and whose training has been superficial. Given a powerful weapon to control children who are annoying them, they deploy it at once rather keeping it as a safety measure. Indeed, their constant resorting to restraint serves to exacerbate children’s mood problems, to increase resistance, and to limit the cognitive ability the child can bring to bear on a problem. Torturing the child by repeated threats and demands for impossible levels of compliance, they pave the way for a response that ends in death.”

The report by Disability Rights Wisconsin - A Tragic Result of a Failure to Act  The Death of Angellika Arndt

The use of physical restraint needs to be regulated. This. Must. Stop! 

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Off The Junk

• So I have been a slug, slug like - hell, a sloth.  I got tired of the vicious cycle of exhausted, caffeine, crash, caffeine, insomnia, exhaustion…so I decided to give up caffeine generally, the 2 Gallons of Diet Coke I was drinking daily specifically.   

• I had to plan it out and wean myself off the junk (Diet Coke) over a week with a protocol that would rival that of a methadone clinic’s.  I barely got any headaches.

• It has been two weeks and I have managed to stop the vicious cycle of exhausted, caffeine, crash…Now it is just exhausted, exhausted, exhausted…

• I am sure the people a Coke have assembled a team to evaluate the sharp decline in the sales of Diet Coke over the past two weeks.  Some poor Coke executive’s kid will probably have to apply for student loans on my account.  

• I’d like to say ‘I feel so much better!’ but, I don’t I just feel sleepy.  Apparently, I need a nap every four hours…who knew? 

• I think my brain cells need the caffeine to fire properly.  I’ll give it another week, and if I still need a nap at noon and five, I will have to rethink the whole thing…maybe a little green tea wouldn’t hurt…

• Being the adult child of a recovering alcoholic I know what they say “one drink is too many and 1,000 is never enough

• …hey maybe I should start a Diet Coke 12 step program.

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