Slow Down, Gym Shoe!

Postman, Deliver This Letter To 1992!

Being at my mom's often brings back memories and feelings from back in the day. Obviously I could never send this letter... I am just venting... but what better place for it than here in my blog?

Dear anonymous parents of the "problem" child,

    You wonder what is the matter with your child. She does not fit in with the rest of the family. She does not fit in with the rest of the world. When this child was a baby, you imagined that you would build a magnificent little person... a little person much like yourself, only better. A little person who would prove to the world that you could be a successful parent. But things didn't seem to work out the way you hoped. And now you are not quite sure what to do with this child, this kid who doesn't do things like all the rest. This kid who doesn't fit in at school or at home. This kid who seems to stumble in the wrong direction all the time. Her horrible grades, her lack of social skills, her odd mannerisms, her lack of interest in the things other girls her age like... where did this little alien come from?

    The school tells you that this child might need help. But you did not want to be that parent, the one with the child who needs help from others! So you scream at your child. You shout that she is lazy, and ignorant. You tell her she doesn't care about anyone but herself. You belittle her for acting like she needs help. Because how can she need help? You never needed help! You were never that child! The school now wants you to sign her assignment notebook each and every day, to prove that the child did her homework. How humiliating for you! Why can't your child just independently do her homework like all the other kids? Does your child just want others to think she is retarded? That must be it. What a loser your child has turned out to be. These are the words you shout at your child... although you tell yourself, she won't even hear you, she won't even care, she won't get the message. If you shout enough, won't she just snap out of it and become normal?

    Your child starts acting out, and gets in trouble. You blame her friends. She seems to seek out friends who have problems. You've heard they have problems at home. This must be the root of it all. Your child wants to be like those problem children! But your home is fine! A fine home, you've created for this child! Look at the couches, they are beautiful! Look at the dining room table, it is set perfectly! Just look at the Nintendo you've supplied your kids with! What a fine home! If you and your spouse fight constantly, if your spouse gets arrested, if  there are other troubles, so what... they are not your child's business. Your child's job is to go out and show the world what a fine parent you are. 

      Besides, as of late, when you fight with your spouse, the fights about her, that problem child, the child who is ruining your family!

      You will not listen to those who suggest your child has ADHD, has some type of autism, has some sort of learning problems. How dare your child be that child, anyway? You will not seek help for your child, until it is too late and the powers that be force you to. But by then, it will be too late.

    I am warning you now, your words are what will destroy your child's spirit. The hateful look in your eyes are what will break her heart. If you had beaten her mercilessly, it would not have hurt as much as this. As she gets older, and goes into the world, she will look for others who will hurt her, and she will not trust those who do not. She will grow older, but she will not grow up. She will not have the tools to be an adult. She will resent herself for being such a loser. She will hate herself for not making you proud. She will try to destroy herself. 

    But if you receive this letter, perhaps it is not too late! Swallow your pride, and love your odd child the way she is. Find ways to help her through her life. Teach her how to care for herself. It will not take much. It will not kill you to sign the notebook. It will not kill you to seek extra support for her in school. Maybe a tape recorder to record the lessons, since she has trouble taking notes? Could you find the money for a tutor like they advertise on TV, the kind who specializes in helping kids who are difficult to teach? Can you find something positive, something extra, for your child to focus her talents on? You are the adult here. What can you do to save your child? 

Stranger At The CVS

Here's a strange story about something that happened... or, rather, something that didn't happen!

Every day at around 2:15 I take Pufferfish and go pick up Rafael from his school, and then go get Little Bear at her school. Today, on the way to get Rafael, Pufferfish and I stopped at CVS to pick up a few things. As I got Pufferfish from her car seat, I saw a lady, all bundled up and with a scarf over her face, standing outside the store. The lady was African American. I watched her stop an African American man who came out of the store, and ask him for a ride to the train depot. The man said "No," and walked to his car. Then the lady stopped an African American woman and asked her for a ride to the train depot. The woman brushed her off, saying she was pressed for time.

I was a little nervous that the lady would ask me for a ride, so I sidled past her as she was still talking to the other woman.

As I walked through the store, I thought about the lady outside. I wondered if I should tell a store employee that the woman was outside, asking for rides and making people uncomfortable. But I decided not to. I have been in that situation before, where I had to depend on strangers like that.

I thought about it more, and decided that, if the lady asked me, maybe I would give her a ride to the train depot! I used to do that kind of thing all of the time. And my brothers and I used to hitchhike a lot ourselves. We depended on people to trust us. We used to go up to people in parking lots and ask them for a ride to the next town, or back to where we were staying, or to a church that would help us with money or food. And, more often than not, we used to get rides! I don't remember ever not getting a ride within an hour of starting to look for one.

When I first got my own car, I used to give people rides myself, as well. I remember going to court for my brother, and being asked by a couple outside the courthouse for a ride to the train depot. I took them. I didn't get killed. I remember staying in a Motel 6 and a lady knocking on my door and asking for a ride to the grocery store. I gave her one. She didn't kill me, and we became good friends for a while after that. I remember when I lived in an apartment complex, people who knew I had a car would come and ask me for a ride to somewhere, and I always agreed to it. I never died. In my experience, if you trusted people and were kind to them, they would behave accordingly, and you would get to meet lots of interesting people and hear great stories in the process. It has been a long time since I have begged for, or given, a ride. It would be nice to help this lady out, wouldn't it?

But when Pufferfish and I walked outside, the lady said nothing to us.

As I helped Pufferfish back into her car seat, I saw two African American women and an African American man walk up to the store. The lady asked them for a ride, and they said no.

It seemed like she was only asking African American people for rides! Was it because she just didn't like white people, or did she assume that, since she was African American, other African Americans would be more likely to trust her and give her a ride?

I thought about going up to the lady and actually offering to give her a ride, but I didn't. I went to pick up Rafael from school.

On the way to pick up Little Bear, we passed the CVS. The lady was still there, looking for a ride. I pointed her out to Rafael. "See that lady? She is asking people for a ride but nobody will give her one!"

"She looks like a ninja," Rafael observed.

"Hmm, she kinda does, with her black scarf over her face," I agreed.

"Its a good thing we didn't give her a ride! She would be nice when you talked to her, but once she got in your car she would try to kill us," said Rafael.

"What makes you think that?" I wondered. It seemed like a pretty dramatic conclusion for a 6-year-old to come up with.

"I saw her on TV," said Rafael. "On the news! They said, `Don't let this lady in your car, because she'll be nice to you when she asks you, but when she's in your car she will try to kill you.' They said she had her face covered like a ninja."

I thought about it and imagined the lady pulling a gun from her heavy winter jacket as she got into the car. So much for trusting people!

The whole escapade could have been a social science experiment, like one of those "What Would You Do" shows on TV where they try to see how many people would ignore a person in need. Did the woman by the CVS ignore me because I was white, and she thought a white person wouldn't give her a ride? Or did she ignore me because I had a baby with me? If I were a better person, would I have gone and offered her a ride? Would I have ended up being carjacked? Is Rafael, at age 6, already jaded by life because he assumes a person asking for a ride is a killer/ Or did he really see that lady on TV? Will these questions follow me for the rest of my life?

What about you? Would you have given the lady a ride?

Back To Nature... and a few updates!

I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who commented on my last post, in which I was feeling very badly. Your kind words and encouragement meant so much to me! I don't have many people in "real life" who I can talk to right now, and it helps to know that at least there are a few people out in the world who understand and don't hate me. To answer one question, I have been on medication for depression (Celexa) for about nine years, on and off, but it doesn't seem to be working as well as it used to. I am really wary of medications because when I was a kid I was put on a really heavy medication that turned me into a zombie! My fear is ending up having to take all different kinds of psychotropic medications on a daily basis for the rest of my life, just in hopes of feeling normal!
At any rate I have still been feeling pretty crappy and hopeless. I am going to try calling the county health department today to see if I can at least go to a regular psychiatrist so maybe they can mess around with my medications. I've heard that if you are already taking a medication you can add Abilify and it will be like a booster or something. The last time I called the county to ask about medication management, they said I wasn't crazy enough and that they only helped people with severe mental illnesses, but maybe if I tell them I've been on the brink of suicide, they'll let me have an appointment???
Jimmy has been working this week so I have been watching the munchkins, which has been a welcome distraction. Today they are spending the day with their grandma though. Yesterday we had a pretty good day. We have been learning about birds, so we went to the grocery store and bought a couple bags of sunflower seeds (which can be bought with food stamps, unlike regular wild bird food!) and brought them down to our favorite nature center as a donation for the birds. We took a walk around the nature center and looked at all of the animals.
Little Bear really loves animals, and she says she wants to work at a nature center when she grows up, so she can hold and feed all of the animals! At this nature center, outside every cage there is a sign posted with the story of how the animal ended up there. Most have been injured too badly to be able to survive in the wild, and several were illegally raised in captivity until they were too tame to ever survive in the wild. Whenever we go to the nature center, I read the stories and tell the kids how the animals got there. And Little Bear remembers all those stories! This was the first time that we'd gone there in quite a while, and Little Bear knew which animals were new, and asked me to read the stories. And she remembered the stories of the other animals. I couldn't remember what animal was around one corner, but Little Bear told me, "Oh, that is the fox who lost his foot!" We walked up to the cage, and sure enough, she was right... it was a three-legged fox!
Here are a couple of pictures I took at the nature center.
By the way, can anyone borrow me $13.00 through Paypal (AngelNicki@comcast.net) so I can get my cat some food? He is all out, and I don't have any cash left, after paying for my prescription the other day! I wish food stamps covered cat food! Sammy-Joe eats Wellness Brand food, and it is $13.00 for the small bag. If anyone could borrow it to me through Paypal, I will send it back to you on Monday!
OK, here are the pics...
Little Bear looking at a cage of birds.

Little Bear holds a "class" for me and Pufferfish inside the Quiet Reading Corner at the Nature Center!

I was trying to get Pufferfish to look at me and point to the birds at the same time, but it was just confusing her! I don't know what she was doing in this picture!

Pufferfish clamoring into the Quiet Reading Corner.

This is a cool little pond in the butterfly garden, with goldfish and frogs and stuff in it!

These next two pictures are my favorites... I want to put them in frames or something!

We spotted this duck just sitting there peacefully, standing on one foot!

Thanks for coming back, everyone! I'll write more soon!

Get Well Soon, Maybe!

So, as far as sicknesses go, things have kinda settled down in our house. Little Bear seems to be completely over her stomach flu, and even spent the day with Tigerlily's family yesterday swimming in the backyard kiddy pool! Pufferfish is still having some trouble breathing, and is extremely whiny, but other than that she's not sick anymore. And I have a horrible ear infaction, which caused me to go to the ER on Friday because it was hurting me so badly and I could barely hear out of it! It still feels really weird, like its all stuffed up, and everything sounds weirder in that ear... kind of like how it feels when you need to "pop" your ears on an airplane, except I can't "pop" mine! It's stuck that way! Torture!!! But I've got antibiotics and Vicadin for it, at least!
I'm feeling crappy in other ways, too, today. I wrote here about some of the things that are going awry lately. And I'm just having a lot of trouble dealing with things. I've been going through really bad depression problems. When you're already prone to depression, the problem is that any little thing can send you spinning into it. Like, you could be walking down the street feeling OK, a little tired and stressed out but no big deal, and then you see a dead cat on the side of the road. And that might make a regular person sad, especially if they like cats, but if the person is prone to depression, it can send them spinning  into a bad episode of depression.
And thats how its been with me, these last few weeks. I've just been hyper-sensitive to anything happening around me. All someone has to do is fart into the wind and I start thinking, "Everyone hates me anyway, nobody wants me around, I just wanna be dead!" Thinking about wanting to be dead has been a constant battle, where I'm pretty much always trying to convince myself to stay alive.
I've even thought about going to the hospital. There's some hospitals out here where supposedly if you don't have insurance they'll sliding-scale the bill down to zero. But there's two main reasons why I don't...
1. Because Jimmy is working on Diana's mom's house these days, and might actually need me to babysit, and so I should stay out of the hospital so I can actually get some money, and staying busy with the kids does help me a lot, at least it offers an eight-hour period of respite for my brain because then I focus on stimulating the kids and taking care of them.
2. If I go to the hospital someone will surely tell my parents. And this would be my worst nightmare. Despite the fact that I am 30, my parents have tons of control over me and my life, because of my special  needs problems. And they totally don't want me to have special needs. They want me to be upstanding and independent, preferably just like them. If I show any signs of weakness (such as admitting myself to a hospital, that would be a MAJOR sign of weakness) they take it to mean that I am losing control of my life and that they need to take control of my life. If they found out I was in a hospital, within hours they'd be having meetings with my doctors, telling them all sorts of things about me (ie: "Her room is a mess, isn't that a sign of psychoticness?") They'd get the doctors and other professionals wrapped around their fingers, then they'd personally take me home so they could care for me, by telling me exactly what to do and not do, and by being sure to take away whatever things in life bring me some happiness. (Won't be able to see Little Bear and Pufferfish, because I shouldn't be taking care of them in the first place! Won't be able to sleep, because then I'm escaping from reality! Etc, etc, etc.) Plus my mom's theory is, "Its fine if you want to be depressed, but don't let it effect our lives." Its all about control to them. So. My biggest motivation to not going to the hospital is to maintain the illusion that I am doing great in life, so my parents will leave me alone. Because I'm 30!!!

So, basically, I'm tired of being me. I'm tired of being such a big disappointment to everyone, and making everyone angry all the time. I'm tired of being a pain in the butt everywhere I go, and constantly feeling like nobody wants me around, but that they're just letting me be around out of obligation. I really feel like I've lost everything. I feel like there's no way forward for me. This is not who I wanted to be, in life. When I was a kid, I wanted to grow up and get out of my parents' house ASAP... in fact, I left home several times, starting when I was 15, and kept on getting dragged back here! I used to envision myself becoming a published author by the time I was 21, getting my own place to live shortly thereafter, becoming a foster parent, and creating my own chosen family where I would always have a place to belong, and where unwanted children like the child I used to be would also always have a place to belong.
But its kind of like, my worst nightmare came true... instead of becoming independent, and creating a place for unwanted children to feel loved, I just remained the perpetually unwanted "child", a burden on society, forever and ever and ever.

Where'd Everybody Go?

A few days ago I realized that my one-year blogoversary for this blog is coming up. (Its this Wednesday!) I decided to go back and start reading my blog from the start, marveling at how much had changed and how much the kids had grown in the course of a year.
But then I noticed something else! When I first started this blog, I got seven or eight comments a day... and just for regular posts, not blog carnivals or anything like that. But after a few months, the comments faded away Now I am lucky if I get one or two comments! Most people get more readers after a year of blogging, but I seem to have gotten less!
I mean, I mostly blog for my own peace of mind. Its occurred to me that when the kids are older I can print out all these entries and photos, or put them on a disk, for them to keep. It will be cool to be able to have these daily memories forever.
But should I be insulted? What has changed about my blog that makes people not want to come back? Has my writing gotten too newsy? Are there too many photos? Am I just boring? Is it because I'm not a real "mommy" blogger, I'm an auntie? Is it because the children are named after animals???
While you mull that over, here are a few pictures of Pufferfish for your viewing enjoyment.

A Love Letter To The Blogosphere

Dear Blogosphere,
      It seems like only yesterday when I met you... but its hard to believe its been nearly five years! Look at how we've both grown and changed! When you and I first hooked up, we were partners in uncharted territory. It was really just you and me against the world. I remember sitting on the floor of Diana's bedroom, with the computer keyboard in my lap, creating my first blog just so I could lament about how upset I was about being left alone when the entire rest of the "family" went out to dinner together. That first blog, The Girl In The Closet, was mostly about Asperger's Syndrome, and my experiences with it. I wrote about my social awkwardness and how simple things, like driving through a toll booth, cou turn out to be disasters for me!
The adventures of "The Girl In the Closet" ended in 2007 when one of my relatives came across a post in which I had wrote about my mother being too controlling. The relative had called my mother and told her, and my mother ordered me to discontinue my blog. So I called it quits on "The Girl In the Closet" (which wasn't such a big deal because I had no readers anyway) and I moved to Livejournal. Angel Was Here was a continuation of my first blog, but new and improved! I mostly wrote about school, work, and my visits with Diana, Anthony and the kids. Back then, I tried to protect everyone's identities by assigning them all aliases. Throughout this blog was when I went through a lot of life changes. I tracked down Maggie and Melissa (known in the blog as Mandy and Sarah-Jo) and got molested by their dad, the Assgrabber. I was supposed to move down to Carbondale for school, and ended up having a nervous breakdown and moving back after about four days. In what seemed like rapid succession after that, Diana and Johnny broke up, DIana got pregnant with Pufferfish, my beloved dog died, and Jimmy moved onto the scene.
 I also got more serious about blogging. I learned about memes and sponsored posts. I read other people's blogs. I started a blog called They're All Our Children, in which I discussed a different' children's issue each day. I used sponsored posts in that blog to donate money to different children's organiation. I went to my first BlogHer Conference.
Unfortunately, when I Started caring for my nieces in early 2008, I didn't have as much energy to focus on my topical blog. I had then moved my personal blog over to All Day Her Dreams, which is, ironically, a lot like The Girl In The Closet. Once I started watching Little Bear and Pufferfish, I began this blog and entered the world of the Mommy Bloggers! (No, I may not be an actual Mommy, but I think I can hold my own when it comes to talking about raising kids!)
SO, Blogosphere, nearly five years we've been together, and still going strong! Many people do not understand the special love I have for you. They don't get why I choose to spend so much time with you. The truth is, you give me so much. Whenever something good, bad, exciting or horrible happens to me, you are the first to hear about it. I poured my heart out to you when my dog died. I took comfort from you when I had a nervous breakdown. You guided me through every horrible part-time job I held before I started watching the girls. When I told you I was ditching school too much, you didn't judge me. When I told you about the Assgrabber, you sympathized. Whenever I was sad, when I was angry with myself, when I felt hopeless, when my feelings were hurt, when I was injuring myself, you lent a sympathetic e. No matter where I was... whether it was at Diana's house, in my mom's basement, in California, or at a library... I knew I could find you. You gave me a way to communicate. When I could not put my feelings into verbal words, there was a chance that I could put them into typing.
You also opened a new world to me. You let me glimpse into the lives of other people all over the country. Because I have my own special needs, and have worked with children with special needs, I tend to read blogs by parents of children with special needs. Because I want to become a foster parent, I read blogs about foster families. And in the Blogosphere Ifound so many heroes...foster parents and social workers who are truly dedicated to the kids they raise and work with, parents who find creative and interesting ways to help their chlldren, and all of the brave and unique children they blogged about. In the Blogosphere, I found myself with a huge family, who I look forward to checking in with several times a week. I've seen miracles happen here. I've seen bloggers rally together to donate money and gifts to struggling families. I saw a little boy with dysgraphia and Asperger's Syndrome begin to write his own book. I've seen families struggle with homelessness and cancer and other hardships, and overcome them. I've seen so much.I've become so much. And its all because of you.
So, Blogosphere, I wanted to take this time to profess my undying love for you. Happy Valentine's Day!

With love,
from Nicki, Little Bear and Pufferfish!

BlogBlast: How Do We Show Our Love?

Time for another Parent Blogger's Network Blog Blast! This time, they and the people at Life and Health Insurance Foundation for Education want to know how families show their love for each other!
One of the first times when I witnessed truly selfiess love was a family member who demonstrated it not for one of her immediate relatives, but for complete strangers.
It was a chilly winter night. Me and Diana were both about 19 years old, driving down Roosevelt Road in an attempt to find a beauty shop that would cut Monkeyboy's hair. Monkeyboy was three, and fought so much in the barber's chair that we had actually gotten kicked out of three different places that night!
As we neared our town, we heard a huge "BOOM!" The sky in front of us lit up firey orange.
I've always been terrified of loud noises and fire... even separately! Part of my sensory disorganization, I guess But when we drove ahead and saw what had caused the boom.. an explosion at an apartment building... Diana insisted that we stop. All sorts of people were gathered around outside, shivering and worried. The people in the apartment building had had to get out fast, without their jackets.
We happened to have a lot of blankets and jackets in the trunk of Diana's car, things left behind by random friends. Diana handed Monkeyboy to me, and ran to the car to get the blankets and jackets. She started passing them out to people who had kids. She took off Monkeyboy's jacket and put it on  toddler who was shivering badly, having been in the bathtub when his family had had to run out of their house!
This was something straight out o Chicken Soup For the Soul! I came from a family where relatives loved each other, but compassion was not always demonstrated, especially not to strangers. Even down-and-out relatives were expected to fend for themselves! Diana was one of the first people who showed me a different, more universal, sort of love.
Throughout the years, Diana continued to demonstrate her love to the world. She did things like pass out hamburgers to homeless people, take care of children when their own parents couldn't, and let homeless friends and family members sleep on her couch.
I hope we can always be the type of people who have enough love to share with everyone!

A Post About Facebook

I belong to Facebook. I also have Myspace, but I barely use it anymore. Facebook seems a little... I dunno... more decent than Myspace. Not as many random people constantly trying to "Friend" you because they want to have 20 million friends on their pages. On Facebook, I have about 30 friends. Most of them are my family members... Diana, my mom and dad (yes, they're on Facebook, can ya believe that?), my most favorite aunt, some of my cousins. I also "friended" a few people I went to high school with... mostly kids I grew up with from elementary school on.
I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I had a horrid time in school when I was a kid. I had undiagnosed ADHD and I was pretty much socially and emotionally immature, all along. It was okay up until about fourth grade. Up until then, kids were just friendly, and I played with anyone. When you're little, kids do tease each other, but its not so brutal, and the teachers are able to keep a closer watch on the kids. But starting in fourth grade kids started teasing me a little bit and not being as tolerant of my differences. By fifth grade, I was completely considered a "nerd", with no friends whatsoever. The kids who thought I was weird were no longer happy just to ignore me, but wanted to torment me as well. I spent most of my recesses at Detention anyway, back then, due to stupid misdemeanors such as not doing my homework and not paying attention in class. But on the days when I had recess, I was usually either sitting around reading, helping out in the special education class, or being teased by a crowd of "popular" kids. This followed me all through junior high and some of high school. By high school, though, kids settled down. People didn't blatantly make fun of others anymore. If people didn't like you, they just ignored you. And I pretty much was ignored, until about junior or senior year, when I started making some friends.
Anyway. In junior high, two of the girls who tormented me the most were these girls I'll call Cheyenne and Gertrude. (Don't ask me where I got those names... just popped into my head!) Their teasing went way beyond how the other kids teased me. These girls could bring me to tears. They were in my gym class, which is the worst class to spend with bullies! They would kick my shins when we played soccer, spray me with deodorant in the locker room, whisper cruel words into my ears while the teacher was taking attendance. I literally used to pray, with all my heart, that Cheyenne and Gertrude would die, so I wouldn't have to see them anymore.
They tormented me all through eighth grade. In high school, I had no classes with them, and they just sort of faded out of my life.
Fast forward to Facebook.
I've always wondered what happened to Cheyenne and Gertrude. In highschool, I used to imagine that horrible things became of them... they became hookers, or drug addicts, or career criminals. But as I got older, I figured it was more likely that they just outgrew their meanness and became normal people.
One day on Facebook, I was looking at a list of people in my graduating class, and I noticed that Gertrude had joined. Impulsively, I clicked the button to "friend" her. I just wanted to see what would happen. I wanted to be able to see her page, see what her life was like now.
To my surprise, Gertrude accepted my "friend request" that very night. She even made a comment on one of my photos... a picture of Pufferfish, in fact... saying "very cute."
It was so strange to me! I wondered if Gertrude remembered how cruel she had been to me in junior high, and if she felt bad about it. Maybe my sending her a friend request was a way of saying I forgave her for all of that... a way of showing myself, and her, that I had grown up. I was feeling pretty good about that. I felt proud that I had gotten to a point where I could look at a person who had once been my enemy, and say, "That was a long time ago. Maybe we aren't going to become actual friends, but lets at least be Facebook friends!" I even noticed that on her profile she looked like she'd become a pretty nice person.
Then, today, while going through my Friends List in order to complete a meme, I realized that Gertrude was gone. When I checked, I saw that it was true. Gertrude had deleted me from her Friends List.
How weird is that? She could have been just cleaning off her friends list and deleting lots of people, and she could have been quitting Facebook or switching to another account or something. But my name on Facebook is slightly different than the name I went by in highschool. Instead of being listed with "Nicki" as my first name, I am listed as "Angel Nicki." So I think the thing that is most possible is that Gertrude didn't really realize who I was when she accepted my friend request. Once she figured out that I was that Nicki, from junior high, she deleted me.
I know I shouldn't even care... but I can't help feeling a little hurt and embarrassed by the whole thing. I've even thought of sending her a note (you can send people notes on Facebook without being on their friends list) but I don't know what I'd say. I wanted to talk it over with the Blogosphere first.
Gertrude was a bitch in junior high. Is it possible that she never did outgrow it?

Does Kindness Even Matter?

A few weeks ago, my mom showed me this email that a co-worker had sent her. The email was about five puppies that had been found in the street, supposedy by my mom's co-worker's friend. According to the email, the guy who found the puppies could not keep them, so he had tried calling all of the no-kill shelters but none had room. He was going to have to take them to the regular pound within a week, and if they didn't get adopted within a week after that they would be put to sleep.
When I read the email I got really upset, especially because the puppies looked a lot like my dog who died last October. so I figured I'd do as much as I could to help those puppies! I forwarded the email to all of my Meetup.com groups that were in the area, and one friend of mine forwarded it to another friend who worked for a dog rescue organization. I thought, "Those puppies will find homes for sure!"
well, I haven'treally talked to my mom in a while. This morning I saw her fo a few mminutes and I thought to ask her, "What ever happened with those puppies?"
As she was running out the door to work, she replied, "Oh, it turned out to be a hoax!"
A hooax? all that for a hoax? Someone's idea of a joke?
When I think about that, and about what happened when me and Little Bear tried to buy presnts for a needy family at Christtmas, and about the situation with Marcus and Brittany and Topher's mom, and with Melissa and Maggie, etc, etc, etc... Diana says she's losing faith in humanity. I was trying to argue with her for a while, but nowo I'm starting to agree. I mean, maybe she's right. Maybe you can't even try to do good in the world anymoe, because too many people are out there trying to trick you. They may be trying to take advantage of your kindness like the kids' mom did by wanting Jimmy and Diana to do everything for her and her kids so that she didn't have to do anything for herself. Or they could be people who use your kindness to throw it in your face and make fun of you, like the dog email people and the Christmas people. Or they could be people who really need help, like Melissa and Maggie, but the negative powers-that-be are stronger than anything you could do to make a difference, and the people in power who could help just won't.
What do you think? Readers, lurkers, passer-byers, please chime in here! is there hop for humanity? Is there any point in trying to be kind anymore? In the words of the Black Eyed Peas, "Where is the love?"

This Will Break Your Heart

A sixteen-month-old little boy died at a day care center in Lincolnshire, which is about half an hour away from where I live. The story is so sad... The day care worker was holding him, got irritated because the other children in the room were getting noisy, and hurled the baby to the floor so hard that he suffered massive head injuries. The saddest part is the description of how the baby grabbed his blanket and crawled to a bouncy chair, where he lay for a while until the day care worker realized he wasn't waking up. And the part where the mother said sometimes the  baby used to have trouble falling asleep, so she had to stay up with him, but how now she's glad because it meant she had gotten to spend more time with him. It makes me want to gag, thinking how that baby spent his last moments.
The saddest part is, I used to work in day care centers, before I started getting into working with kids with special needs. I worked at several Kinder-Care centers. And I can totally see how something like that could have happened. I mean, I remember horrid things happening in those places. I remember the lead teacher picking up a toddler by the straps of his overalls and shaking him. Another assistant teacher, who was watching through the door, went and got a director, who just told the lead teacher to take a break and asked me to take care of the 8 toddlers in the room on my own. I remember hearing about a teacher in the two-year-olds room who tied kids down to their cots so they wouldn't get up at nap time. The same teacher had once gotten in trouble for punching a kid. I remember babies being left in bouncy seats or swings for hours, and being told not to pick up or move the babies because it would make them get used to having attention.
Some people who work in child care centers absolutely love children and are very patient people. But not all. Some (even many) are just trashy people who cannot get any other jobs. I'm not trying to insult anyone... after all, I worked in many day care centers myself! But it is really easy to get a job in a child care center. If you have children, or younger siblings, can answer some basic questions about child development, and can pass a background check, you can work in a day care center. You have to have a certain amount of college credits to be a lead teacher, but that absolutely does not mean you won't be left alone with a classroom of children if you're not certified. I worked in places where 16-year-old highschool students, at their afterschool jobs, were left in charge of classrooms of toddlers. I remember one girl in the classroom next to mine took her toddlers outside to play, brought them back in, and left one outside! She didn't notice until some parents coming to pick up their children saw the little boy standing by the gate all alone. The "teacher" who left him out there was sixteen, you know? Watching eight toddlers! I remember two teachers getting into a verbal altercation and swearing at each other, right in front of the children. My nephew, who was three, was at the daycare where I worked, for a while, and I remember seeing his teacher yank him up by the arm, from behind, to take him to the bathroom before nap time.
If you have infants or toddlers, don't put them in chain daycare centers like Kinder Care or Minee Subee. They don't really focus on teaching these kids anything, or nurturing them. They focus on having as many children as legally possible, with as few staff members as legally possible, paying their staff members as little as legally possible, so they can make more money. They hang up  "lesson plans" on the walls for parents to see, but those lesson plans are never carried out.  At one of the jobs I had, I worked from three to six, and when I got there I was told to write on the dry erase board what activities the children had done during the day. I pointed out that I had no clue what the kids had done, since I hadn't been there, and the director rolled her eyes and told me to just make a few things up! Thats what these places are all about. I'm not trying to scare parents or make you feel guilty... but many chain daycare centers know exactly what they have to make themselves look like in order to get you to trust them, and exactly what they can get away with once you're gone. The best places to put children in day care are places like Montessori or Waldorf day care centers, or centers run by colleges or hospitals or social service agencies. Thats the best advice I can give you.
I guess this is a rant, but it just made me so sad, hearing about that little boy. :(
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