A HOME OR A WAR ZONE?

People are wondering what’s going on with me. Since I don’t think secrets serve anybody, I’m going to share a personal letter I wrote to my in-laws and an attached article that “Splains everything, Lucy.”  So here it is. Judge me if you will, judge away muthuhfuckuhs. In our attempt to save a little girl from deaths door at a shit-hole orphanage, my super-mom superpowers were put to the test. 10 years later, resignation. Can’t save everybody. And at this point, I just gotta save myself. And the remaining members of our nuclear family.

Hi Mom, (& *****)

Erik  wanted me to forward you this article which my friend Tracey sent me. The first time I read it I was stunned to see my life so handily displayed in black and white. After reading it several more times I have to say it is the single most concise explanation of what I’ve spent 10 years doing. The director of Geneva’s unit, after speaking with me on the phone, told me he thought I had PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) or some degree of it, and I had to agree. Attempting to be Geneva’s mother has changed me, I’ve said it a dozen times, and here it is in this paper. At any rate, researching more deeply the fallout of RAD (Reactive Attachment Disorder) Erik and I will be strategizing differently. Since Geneva has been out of the home, Estelle has begun to blossom. Living in this vacuum, I had not realized how much living in this war zone has oppressed Estelle’s spirit, but now it’s quite clear.  Anyway, I could go on for days.  Our family situation is described in every. Single. Sentence.  I have always viewed myself as one of the most emotionally/mentally strong people I’ve ever known, knowing very little fear and certainly rarely questioning my sanity or capabilities. But there has been a slow, almost so slow it was not perceptible, deterioration in my mental/emotional health and only by standing back and gathering this and other data, can I begin to realize just how far I have fallen from who I used to be. I mean, I know how miserable I am, but putting a face on it is another thing entirely. I only leave the house when forced. I can sleep for outrageous amounts of time. I quit school. I quit the gym. I tried to quit my band, but some tiny spark of life preservation jumped in at the last second, prompting me to beg for my job back ~ most days I cry off and on for hours. And I, am not a crying, miserable person. This is NOT who I am!  Jumpy in public, angry in public, completely distracted at all times, my mind buzzing with a thousand ways to “fix” everything, but nothing ever works. This decline is because I have been somebody’s target for almost 10 years now. Walking around your own home with a target on your back changes a person. And NOT for the better…. Yesterday I went to see Geneva on her unit and I was crying within 5 minutes, as she was difficult with me and showed no attempt to even ‘schmooze’ me for a get out of jail card. The only time there was a glimmer of any emotion was at the mention of her freedom, a word she used when I suggested that hopefully she would get better. She was not concerned with getting better, only getting ‘free.’  But it was only the concept of freedom that she responded to ~ coming home or rejoining her family was not a factor. She was pulling all the same crap on me she does each and every day, each and every hour. Last night I spent some time researching more RAD data, including reading some blogs by women who have been doing this for years and years, and suddenly I realized that even more pervasive than an underlying mood disorder, we were dealing more and more with RAD, along with the fetal alcohol and mental retardation. A trifecta of agony and frankly, flat-out family destruction.  This kid, this poor damaged soul, has just about managed to take me down….and as I fall, so do Estelle and Erik. A wake of misery. And after pouring your heart and soul into an abyss for 10 years, a sad ending to a tragic story of deprivation. I’ve never been one to be ANYbody’s target. I told her psych unit that I have “a very low tolerance for abuse.”  But putting motherhood first, I was looking at these things as challenges. Sadly, from all the research I’m reading, these challenges do not go away and in fact, I have YET to run across anybody who’s had any degree of success at fixing these kiddo’s.  All that’s happened is the destruction of marriages and families, in their heroic attempts to fight the good fight.  We are not sure what our next move will be, but at this point I have drawn a line in the sand. One patient (Geneva) is turning into 4, as she destroys the rest of us. Well, not on my watch. Throwing myself and Stel under the bus is not an option any longer….especially since there is no cure. She already broke my finger last month, swinging at me. I won’t wait for her to put me in the hospital or worse. This is fixin’ to end, one way or another. The line that most jumped out at me in this article, tho they ALL rang true, was “It is a known fact, that kids diagnosed with RAD tend to target their Moms, play it cool around their Dads, and charm strangers.”  Hello. Taken straight from our daily play book around here. In fact, the night we took Geneva to the hospital, she had been taunting and tormenting me all day ~ but it was not until Erik left to go to the store (or the gym or somewhere, I’ve blocked it out)  that she became physically aggressive towards me. Literally within about one minute. So calculated. Which you don’t want to ascribe to a ‘child’, being calculated, but she is. Then when Erik came home, it had become so combustable that even she could not control herself any more and began kicking in my bedroom door repeatedly….turning our home from a home into a violent, psychiatric ward. There’s nothing quite like being pursued by a violent person, in your own home. And my child, no less? Somebody’s gonna get hurt or killed and I think, in fairly short order unless we take measures to prevent it. I want to write a better ending to this story other than death and destruction. I appreciate all your support and advice over the years and consider myself blessed to have married into a family of such smart and loving folks.  As for me, I am trying to dig my way out and seek recovery for PTSD, given to me by my CHILD, not by war. But a mother, who is really a mother, is truly never free. My home IS a battleground (as this article describes in a way I would have never thought to use). Here’s to writing a better ending to this story….I was prepared for motherhood, not for war.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
in Parents of
Reactive Attachment Disordered Children

by Jody Swarbrick

Many foster and adoptive families of Reactive Attachment Disordered children live in a home that has become a battleground. In the beginning, the daily struggles can be expected, after all, we knew that problems would occur. Initially, stress can be so subtle that we lose sight of a war which others do not realize is occurring. We honestly believe that we can work through the problems. Outbursts, rages, and strife become a way of life. An emotionally unhealthy way of life. We set aside our own needs and focus on the needs of our children. But what does it cost us?

The majority of the population does not understand the dynamics of parenting a RAD child. Family and friends may think that you — the parent are the one with the problem. Families are frequently turned in on false abuse allegations. Support is non-existent, because outsiders can’t even begin to imagine that children can be so destructive. 

It is a known fact, that kids diagnosed with RAD tend to target their Moms, play it cool around their Dads, and charm strangers. Where does that leave a parent? Without strong support and understanding, the parent will become isolated, demoralized, hurt, confused, and often held accountable for the actions of their child. 

Families are simply not prepared for the profound anger that lives in the heart and soul of our RAD children. It’s heartbreaking, frustrating, mindboggling, and extremely stressful. In essence, we’re fighting to teach our children how to love and trust. Intimacy frightens our children; they have lost the ability to love, to trust, and to feel remorse for hurtful actions. They see us as the enemy. Small expectations on our part can set our children off in ways that are not only indescribable, but also often unbelievable.

Your home becomes a war zone and you feel totally inadequate. You begin to question your parenting abilities, and your own sanity. You know that your child has been hurt beyond words, you ache for them. Despite your loving intentions and actions, it’s thrown in your face.  Your heart’s desire is to provide your child with untold opportunities, a future, and all the love in the world. You want to soothe your child.  You want your child to have a fulfilling childhood and to grow up to be a responsible adult. Yet, you are met with hatred and fierce anger.

In war, the battle lines are drawn; an antagonism exists between two enemies. In our homes, we are not drawing battle lines; we are not prepared for war. We are prepared for parenting. Consequently, the ongoing stress can result in disastrous affects on our well-being literally causing our emotional and physical health to deteriorate.

The primary symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder include:

• Avoidance — refusing to recognize the thoughts and feelings associated with the trauma, this further includes avoiding activities, individuals, and places associated with the trauma.
• Intense distress — when certain cues or “triggers” set off memories of the traumatic event. You may have trouble concentrating, along with feelings of irritability, and frustration over trivial events that never bothered you in the past.
• Nightmares and flashbacks — insomnia or oversleeping may occur. You may exhibit symptoms such as heightened alertness and startle easily.
• A loss of interest in your life — detaching yourself from loved ones. Losing all hope for the future and a lack of loving feelings.

Secondary symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder can include:

• The realization that you are no longer the person you once were. Relationships have changed by alienating yourself from loved ones. Loneliness and a feeling of helplessness prevail in your daily life.
• Depression, which can lead to a negative self-image, lowered self-esteem, along with feeling out of control of your life and environment. You may become a workaholic and physical problems may develop.
• You become overly cautious and insecure. Angry outbursts may occur putting stress on significant relationships.

If you are parenting a child diagnosed with Reactive Attachment disorder, you will not escape adverse effects. It is essential to recognize that your feelings are typical under stressful conditions. It is just as essential to accept the fact that extensive stress is unhealthy. By recognizing the symptoms and seeking support, you will strengthen your abilities to cope. Counseling is readily available to families and individuals. Take advantage of resources that will help you put the traumatic experiences into perspective, enabling you to let go of past feelings by replacing them with positive skills for recovery.

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Reactive Attachment Disorder and Fetal Alcohol Syndrome
FAS Community Resource Center

To sing is to pray twice. ~ St. Augustine
                                        

Everybody Should Almost Die

You know, when you almost die, it changes you.  In my case, almost solely for the better.

31 years ago today my life plunged into chemo hell.  Week after week (For 3 1/2 years) of noxious chemicals being sifted into my blood, to every fiber of my body.  Radiation, such a dangerous type they don’t even use it any more, blasted my still growing, frail, frame.  Oral med’s – sometimes 24 pills a day, infiltrating i.v.’s backing up chemicals like Cytoxan into my flesh, spinal taps, bone marrow extractions, radioactive dye being blasted thru me.  Can I tell you that it sucked?  Can I make you understand that dry heaving every 20 minutes for 2 days is some kind of really really bad movie?  Anyway, the point of today’s entry is not to bemoan all that horrendous shit.  All I have to do is look at photographs taken in Nazi Germany’s concentration camps and I feel like a real pussy.  My life, was a cake-walk compared to that.  Someone was trying to save my life, not thrash me lifeless.  Unless you characterize cancer as a person (which sometimes I do) – Me vs. Cancer, battle to the death.  So — I killed IT, I guess.  I win.  For now.

Everybody should almost die because it makes you…a lot of things.  It makes you smarter about life.  Death bed perspective cannot be taught, picked up in graduate school, beaten into you or given to you by a loving party.  You have to EARN that motherfucking stuff.  And once you do, life can be a downhill run from there. Besides learning what is ‘most excellent’ in life, you also develop low tolerance for certain things.  Here is a list of things that I have ZERO tolerance for since kicking cancer’s ass:

• Whiners
• Weak Willed People
• Smokers
• Professional Victims
• Addicts
• Having My Chain Jerked
• Indecisive Morons
• Negative Ninnies
• Picky eaters
• Greed
• Money Hungry Bastards
• Spoiled American Brats
• Plastic Crap At Christmas
• RWNJ’s (right wing nut jobs)
• Liars
• Mechanical Object Which Do Not Do What They Are Supposed To Do
• Ignorance
• Complacency In The Face Of Evil
• Taco Meat That Tastes Like Artificial Smoke
• Cruelty To Animals And The Aged
• Indifference

And wow…I just realized I could probably go on and on like that…scary…..and it makes me sound kind of, well, grumpy frankly, but I’m not at all!  I think I can sum it up this way:

If you are an apathetic ignorant idiot who smokes & is mean to animals and gandy’s and who won’t get off their ass and do something about injustices that come your way and you always want more than your fair share and you’re willing to lie to get it and you throw your kids lavish, ugly birthday parties and you inundate your children with gads of plastic crap each holiday without instilling the gift of charity to them instead, while simultaneously complaining about the abundance of food served to you and you whine about your life yet have no idea what you want out of it while straddling the fence and enabling the weak around you to continue to be weak and you don’t have the guts to own your mistakes and you never do what you say you are going to do AND you make lousy taco’s….then I guess I have zero tolerance for you.

Shalom.  🙂

If you were to almost die a lot, I bet you’d get a list too.

Love,

Feisty Housewife – 31 years out.

P.S.  Oh yeah.  And hunters.  I don’t think guys should be able to take guns and kill things while the things are trying to drink from a babbling brook.  Man, that’s just fucked up unfair.  Kinda reminds me of Cancer just kinda sorta….sneaking up on ME……BAM, FUCK YOU, BAM.  Unfair.

THAT GUY YOU NEVER DID, BUT ALWAYS WANTED TO.

O.K.

The griping, complaining, bitching, moaning, whining can end.  I’m back.  Yet to reveal more crap about my life that nobody really should know, especially if we shop at the same Safeway…..

I’ve grappled with starting an anonymous blog, so I can actually fling some real meat out there to bored housewives and lurking men.  But I’ve decided that I’m too tired and grumpy and just don’t give a shit any more. (Note the already terse language).  Stop now if you offend easily.  This won’t be dainty.  I’ve decided not to care about taking heat for my blood, umm, blog….and the nicey nice days are effin OVER!  They bore me.

Today’s topic of interest that actually peaked my interest enuf to get me writing again:

THE POWER OF THE NON-HOOK-UP

Indeed, if you have ever suffered from “Holy hell, I wish I’d done that guy when I had the chance – itis” then you may relate to this post.  The holy hell comment is immediately followed by the “& now it’s too freaking late” remorseful sigh.  Pity party follows.  It’s too late because you’re married, which is also followed by a pity party.  But I digress….

This FaceBook thing.  People, it’s damn dangerous.  Sure, it can be all warm and fuzzy, hooking up with chums from elementary school, long lost teen buddies, long distance family and friends of every ilk.  However, there looms an alluring threat!  It’s a trap, and I fell into it today like a junkie wallowing in a kiddie pool of cocaine.  I ‘ran into’ a….guy.  A blast from my past who, for all intents and purposes, has been absent from my life for a quarter of a century – but not entirely absent from my mind.  My sick mind!  Gawd, you and your sick-o wackin’ mind! This “guy”, and let’s just call him “Mac” was a high school pal who I’d had a lot of laughs with, but I was far too innocent and naive to ever let things escalate. Myself, my nickname in high school was “Mary Pure.”  STOP laughing, all y’all bitches, and you know who you are. Anyway, I was a very chaste young lady, religious, thought of my body as off limits for godly reasons as well as the empowering Janet Jackson philosophy of “What have you done for me lately?” Whatever, it worked.  I made it thru high school a virgin, and not even to 3rd base. (Naa-naa-nee-boo-boo).  Mac and I and another gal pal of mine traveled as a group.  And when I went into the hospital my junior year with complications from my chemotherapy, they were the only ones from my school who had the guts to “drive downtown” to the hospital to see me.  He (they) earned mega points in my heart for that and those points still hold up today.  Back in the ice age of 1979 it was still rather taboo to have cancer.  To be sick and bald.  No one shaved their heads in sympathy, there were no ‘walks’ or ‘runs’ or support groups. You groped thru cancer primarily alone, and for me, that was a 3 and a half year churn up a long, slow hill with primitive chemo from hell.  From hell.  For nowhere else could generate that kind of torture.   Aww, waaa waa waaa….knock it off already! A couple of years after we graduated, Mac and I hung out some.  But oh, did I forget to mention he was my first real kiss?  Oh my god.  Somehow, and do not ask me how, I got him back into my bedroom at my parents house and we ended up on my waterbed!  Yes, the 70’s strike again. And my mother, The Warden, I cannot tell you where the hell she was because that woman could pinpoint my whereabouts at any given moment waaaay before the days of the GPS.  Hell, my mother WAS a GPS.  And I feared her.  So post high school, Mac and I had a couple of ill fated dates, the last one taking place in his parent’s hot tub.  In retrospect, all I could remember about Mac was, “Man, he liked to fight.”  Verbal bantering, bratty come backs, just kinda difficult.  And I was not then, nor am I now, a fighter.  I like to have fun.  No bickering, pleeease.  Yawn.  Soooooo, to the here and now.  Mac and I jotted a few lines back and forth on FaceBook (DEADLY FaceBook) and then he gave me his number so we could have a decent exchange like human beings instead of asking relentless questions and penning responses.  So I, in my adolescent glee, grabbed the phone as if I needed air and the receiver was a fully charged oxygen tank with my name on it!  Mind you, at this point I’m simply eaten alive with sentimentality and curiosity.  His FaceBook photo was damn ass cute, too – so I would be lying if I tried to play this off as all sweetness and light.  It aint.  But I am married, to a more than gorgeous guy (I married up, way up) and am NOT looking for a fool around. When Mac answered, I kid you not, I began giggling.  Giggling! He sounded the same, so I had to moronically blurt that out while feebly attempting to control myself.  “Ooo, you sound the same!”  WHAT a jackass.   We played catch up for almost an hour.  I had forgotten what ended our last date.  He had not.  He remembered many things I had forgotten which was amazing to me.  Of course, that also flattered me, and so the descent into feeding my dish doing, laundry toting, boring ass housewife ego came into play.  Feeding that beast…it’s the same beast men have, only men often do a piss poor job of controlling it.  Look, I know when I’m a-huntin’.  I recognize the need to be pined for, remembered, lusted for long after the fact.  And today when Mac fed the beast, with many subversive remarks and even a few obvious ones, I was not only hunting for it, I was out for the kill!!  For a few minutes it was not about the kids, their maladies, the schedule, the GD chores.  And to hear him admit that he laments missing our chance to “hook up”, well dear friends, my beast hung up with a belly full of satisfaction.  And Mick Jagger says you can’t get no.  I was satisfied.  So much so that I went to the gym and did 5 miles up hill faster than ever before, smiling with every step.  And that was wrong.  I should NOT be happy about talking to Mac today.  I should NOT be enthralled with that conversation.  I should be on my knee’s begging forgiveness from the Lord and my husband.  But I am not.  Instead, I’m writing this.  Because I know I cannot be that different from other people.  Could I be such an evil freak, as to garner so much titillation from this questionable Mac encounter?  Hell, I don’t know.  I’m glad Mac doesn’t live in my town.  Our paths will not cross.  And the best part of that is that we get to “wonder” for the rest of our lives what would have happened if our timing had been different.  Owww, the fire down below can never be put out!   And that’s the beauty part – sheer beauty!!  Theee most gorgeous kind of pain!  That squirming in your chair kind. Our Lego’s will never click together (ah, you can take the slut out of the mom but you can never take the mom out of the slut!) – I told my husband about the e-mails and even the phone call.  He’s so used to my male friends that it did not phase him, God bless his little heart.  And for all I know, he may read this and YICK on that!  No thanks. And if my hubby had penned this instead of me I’m certain my initial reaction would be, “Why you son-of-a…how DARE you…”  Bottom line is this:  I am glad that Mac and I never got together in that special yummy way.  He was a fantastic kisser, so I get to take that with me.  And if we ever speak again perhaps now that I’ve vented in this forum I can contain myself somewhat and not gush like a spaz.  Yes, spaz.  I got out my old yearbooks today, too.  I transported myself to another time.  A time when I did not have so much on my mind, or so much on my plate.  A time when I did not know the all consuming love that we mother’s have for our children.  That love.  It keeps me in line, period.  I am not willing to risk the sanctity of that love for anything, which I made clear to Mac today….tho, while still mentioning to him that I do enjoy playing my piano naked…..

It’s powerful, that Non-Hook-Up.

I firmly feel that wanting something that you cannot have is a good thing. After all, you can’t have everything.  Where would you put it?  (Bo-Ann, get it out of the gutter.)

Milk & Mercy

So today I was downloading some tunes and making a new spring mix CD for my car, a yearly tradition. I did this today to distract myself from the news, from my own malaise, my continual sense of helplessness about the world. Hell, about my own kids. I can’t control one, I can’t fix the other. Or is it I can’t fix one and I can’t control the other….the solution of course is to be more pro-active and get my hands dirty doing something to help people in need. It just seems I can never quite put my finger to it. The thing I should do. It was this same sense of frustration I felt after both of our adoptions. I got two out of there, but what about the rest? The ones left behind, forgotten. Charitable and aid organizations pick up this ball like pro’s and toss it around, spreading help to the world. God, they are amazing. Those people are amazing. We give them money; a decent chunk. I suppose that helps assuage my painful, guilt ridden soul.

I was making my playlist and looked down to see two songs listed one after the other: “Milk” & “Mercy”. Those were the titles. My mind flew to Burma, China. Yes, thats exactly what they need there – Milk & Mercy. I pictured a toddler, homeless and wandering in rags. Maybe she had parents left, maybe she didn’t. She needs milk. I imagined a mother, weeping and wailing over her dead baby. She needs mercy. And altho I constantly use music as therapy (saves thousands of dollars) today there was no escaping the agonies of the world. No amount of distraction could prevail. I began to run the gauntlet of world problems and questioned if milk & mercy could really help. Milk is even better than water if you’re starving, right? (Don’t make me go into ‘if it’s not spoiled and what about lactose intolerance’ etc. This is my imagination, in my attempt at a solution -and I hand the villagers glass after glass of cold, whole milk and they smile as they drink and maybe they even get little milk mustachios….) And mercy? Well, who couldn’t benefit from a fistfull of that? Like, HEY – Could mercy change evil doers? Jesus would say, “Yes.” Then I cogitated about some really over the top evil bastards – they make the news every friggin’ day – they throw babies from bridges, mutilate animals…is there ANY amount of milk or mercy that could ever help those wicked pricks? And frankly, by the time they’ve done their evil they aint gettin’ ANY of my milk and I’d just-asoon throw the switch as to show them mercy. See, that’s how I know I’m not Jesus….not even close. I guess maybe they needed the milk & mercy long before they went evil. That’s part of what motivates me to keep working with my daughter who has so many post institutional problems. She spent so many years in a developmental wasteland that she’s not normal and I don’t know if she will ever be. My goal is to avoid her becoming a sociopath. The theory being; If I give her enuf Milk & Mercy now….maybe, just maybe…..

Because I don’t want to READ about her later. I don’t want her to BE the news. It falls on me to attempt to thwart the possibility. And when I think about the agony of the world tonight my heart tightens. I want to grab-up all those babies and make them safe again, tho they are not. I want to take those parents back in time and return to them their precious, beautiful children. But I cannot. Powerless does not even begin to cover it – the incompetence I feel. So it seems what I am left with sits right here in my own home. Today she’s lied to me several times, broken rules and and now I hear her father in the other room telling her to “DROP IT, DROP IT!” and I don’t even know what the hell it is, but I do know that she’ll continue to push his buttons until he wants to throw her into the back yard for the night. But we can’t do that. My only option, and I do feel a bit trapped here when I say this, is to get up, go in there, and give her something she needs. To head upstairs, lounge into my fat clothes and crawl under the covers is not acceptable. I have to go now. Milk & Mercy needed in the next room.

Artsy Fartsy Poem

And So To Be A Mother

You put yourself aside.

Shoulder many burdens,

Grasping onto pride.

Often times our pockets are filled with hidden tears.

And from our lips a million prayers to get us thru the years.

Mothers give and mothers save and when it’s said and done,

There is no stronger anchor than a Mother’s love.

Nothing lasts forever and when our lives draw nigh,

The legacy we leave behind shines in our children’s eyes.

Whether born of the womb, or born of the heart

Our babies – Our reason to live.

And even if there’s nothing left

Somehow, The Mama will give.

-D. Feisty Housewife

Things Daddy’s Do (Or Don’t Do)

When The Mama must be away, the darling Dad’s are in charge. This can lead to some unconventional methods of clothing the children, feeding them, “watching” them, etc. Over time I have amassed a small treasure trove of stories from my gal pals – and I’m hoping people will comment and add more because I know the stories are out there!

Story 1. The Mama must be away, leaving infant first born daughter with attorney father. Attorney: Implied intelligence, finished college (even if he drank his way thru, he still finished). Now, Dad did not have to watch the baby all day, only get her to day care. Simple, right? So at the end of the working day Mom showed up to the day care provider to reclaim said baby girl. It’s like….July, and the baby is dressed…..as Tigger. Head to toe, warm & fleece fuzzy (in JULY), a Tigger suit. Embarrassed, The Mama realized that her husband had chosen ( out of the myriad of adorable, matchy-matchy-froo-froo outfits, out of a stuffed closet full of first born cuter-than-crap bordering on baby couture choices) that Daddy in his infinite wisdom, had chosen the baby’s Halloween costume from last fall! Say what? The new Mom, only using day care a couple of days a week as it was, uncomfortably reclaimed her Tigger baby and headed home to ‘question’ The Daddy. 😉 But Tigger didn’t care. She just sucked her fist happily, bouncing along for the ride as Tiggers do.

2. The Mama must be away for the day. The dad had his hands full with 3 boys under the age of 9. When mom reconvened with the family for the evening meal they ordered pizza because Mom had been sick and running all day. The older two boys in particular were wolfing down their pizza – gorging with inspirational gusto. Mom said, “Hey, what’s up? What did you eat for lunch?” Son #1 said, “Nothing.” Dad, feeling a bit perplexed and perhaps beginning to feel the heat said, “Oh, I’m sure we had something.” Now here’s the beauty part. Confidently and with a shade of indignance #1 lets the cat out of the bag with, “Sure, 2 Oreo’s.” Two Oreo’s? Hahahhahahaha. This dad, Mr. CPA, apparently forgot how to count the meals he needed to provide for the day. But no one starved to death. Tho Mom got the chance to shoot her *very special look* at Daddy. And perhaps she acquired some future ammo….

You know, it makes you wonder about leaving the house??? The basics!! We’re talking the basics here!!

In general, the thing I’ve noticed that separates the Mom’s from the Dad’s most obviously is a phenomenon I like to call “glance time.” When a mother is with her children, whether it’s at home but especially in public, she glances at her children about every 3-5 seconds. Understand, that you can glance with your eyes or your ears, but no matter how many directions the crap-is-aflyin’, that Mom – is glancing. Dads? I’ve observed dad’s going many minutes without glancing. I think they assume that if no one is screaming, things are fine – and truth be told, that’s probably more correct than I’d like to admit. Today’s children are micro-managed like fragile cells in a petrie dish. We hover over them like neurotic scientists with OCD. Oh yeah, you were 20 seconds too late collecting your kid from the yard when she was almost murdered by the riding mower. There’s no accounting for diligence. You can be diligent as hell and still get your kid killed or stolen.

Back to the fluff. The clothes, the food, and should we even GO to ‘the hair’? If the Daddy has daughters, there is NO TELLING what their hair is going to look like. Trolls gone wild?

I guess we could all relax a tad and use the yard stick: If it isn’t life endangering or morally threatening to their immortal souls, maybe it’ll be all right. And now, I’m wimping out. I’m frankly too tired to share more stories – – – I had to take Estelle back to the surgeon yesterday so they could remove a cast, look at the leg and then apply a new cast. Problem being, the new cast was applied WRONG, and she was awake crying last night because it hurt, so this morning I got up and took it off my damn self. Dr. Mom strikes again. And it’s the weekend, so good luck getting any health care, right? Right.

Signing Out,

Tired Feisty Housewife

BINGO! Sport of The Disabled

So I escaped the house tonight. To do charity work. But hey, it’s still NOT fixing dinner at my house and doing the bedtime routine. An escape of any ilk is still emancipation from the pattern – that one I’ve been sucked into. Suck, suck, slurp and there goes my brain, being vacuumed right outta my wee little head. Anyway –

Our Relay For Life team does an annual bingo fund raiser for The American Cancer Society which garners great numbers and is in honor of a courageous gal from our town who passed away from cancer, leaving two young children behind and THAT should be illegal. I am a cancer survivor myself. (Diagnosed in 1977 with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma which had a nasty survival rate so they gave me odds of 1000 to 1 to survive. HA! Showed them, eh?) Don’t tell me I *can’t* do something….even like, survive. I’ll kick your ass. So I’ve had more chemotherapy than anyone I’ve ever met, hundreds of spinal taps and bone marrow extractions, yadda, yadda, yadda – they inflicted theee most prehistoric chemo on me. Dumped the entire kitchen sink into my veins, and then some. Radiation from hell. No surprise I’m a nut job – I glow in the friggin’ dark. Nothing quite as fun as being a bald 15 year old albino girl. Well, I’m not a true albino but I’m a mere gene twist away. But I digress!! I am not talking about cancer survival in this blog, on-account-a I figure I could write a friggin’ book. What I want to talk about is the phenomenon I’ve observed about BINGO and it’s place in American weeknights.

It’s the sport of the disabled. I say this because of who plays bingo. Gandy’s (my sister-in-law’s slang word for the elderly. I’m not sure where she got it, but we use it around here. Example: Someone’s creeping slowly down the road in front of you in their floater-mobile such as a Towncar or Crown Vic and they are wearing a HAT and they are drifting ever so slowly within their lane to every extreme – so as to not cross over any line but yet you can’t predict exactly where they are going to float to next. You can either call them a “hat driver” or a “Gandy”. It’s a thing. Anyway, Gandy’s play bingo and that’s an internationally known fact, I’m not being prolific here. But who else plays? O.K, I’ll tell you, because I know you are fixin’ to wet yourself with anticipation….People who drag their oxygen tanks behind them, that’s who! And they arrive extra early to get the best seat at the cafeteria tables with the institutional metal chairs. I mean, I’m setting up the kitchen food (I always work the kitchen at this event) – Jeeeesus, I guess I don’t actually get out of the kitchen EVER, do I? Anyway, so here they come, pulling their little tanks of life. They are followed by the “Limper’s”. They are in walkers, using canes or in wheelchairs. They gimp in and make camp in choice locations. As I observe these poor folks, I realize that my daughter who is currently in a wheelchair could also participate. Why, this could be HER sport! She’s 9, not 90, but the crippled-up part applies. Even after her accident where she tried to get killed by a riding lawn mower, bingo was the first thing they dragged her to in the play room at Johns Hopkins. She had 3 out of 4 of her limbs down. Only her right hand escaped the ravages of that goddamned mower. Sigh. Cry. My Stella. Moooovin’ on…..don’t get caught there tonight, you are too tired. In addition to the Gandy’s, the Barely Breathing’s and the Limper’s are the….now DON’T get your panties in a wad over this, but let’s just put it delicately and say the “larger” Americans. By large, I mean they have their own zip code. No lie. I feel sorry for them, as they squeeze their way between the lines of tables and chairs but I also feel sorry for those damn chairs, – stop it! Not nice, not nice. The metal chairs release squeaks of pain and strain as our larger friends take a load off. And of course I’m standing back there in the kitchen/snack bar area with my head into my 3rd helping of nacho cheese dip and chips so who the hell am I to talk? As the evening progresses the irony strikes me that we are here to raise money to cure and help prevent cancer and the entire place is full of colon cancer nominees and I’m serving them hot dogs, nachos and soda pop! To be fair, we also had fruit cups, fresh veggies w/ dip and home made chicken salad that was not too evil. One guess as to what item was most left over at the end of the night? Aw, you got it. Fresh veggies. I finally had to break down and eat a fruit cup and some veggies because I could actually hear my arteries beginning to harden from the cheese sauce I was inhaling.

These people are also very serious about their bingo. They are “hard core”. They do not joke when they play, they do not look as if they are having any fun at all. (Just like people at slot machines who always look like they are at a wake or really boring church and I’m always hopping around at my money sucking machine shouting, “Come on baby, mama needs a new pair of Sunday-go-to-meetin’ shoes” and other highly obnoxious quips that amuse and entertain me.) Do NOT get between these Gandy’s, Barely Breathing’s, Limper’s and Larger’s and their bingo for they have perfected the art of the death glare and they are heavily armed with bingo blotters. Or dobbers. Or whatever the hell they are called.

So as we age my darlings, we can look forward to a fabulous sport that’s tailored to our special needs. A sport that mandates you sit on your ass, eat snacks, and only requires one good hand to make it happen. BINGO! My future awaits. And I hope it waits a long long time.

Yours,

D. Feisty Housewife

Sidebar: Geneva cannot play bingo. The scanning and dobbing specific numbers is simply too much for her brain. She’d have greater success sitting inside the bingo ball blower trying to catch the numbered orbs as they flew by. In fact, she’d rock that out. I’ll probably need to find her a job like that in about 5 years or so….

I’m Not ALONE, I’m Not ALONE!

Well have mercy!! Praise God, Alla, Buddha, Lao Tsa, Zeus, Jimmy Carter, WhoEVER!

Some other mothers, treading water with ankle weights strapped to their tired feet, have chimed in to my lowly little blog spot and made my day! Mothers of adopted children who are faced with problem children and all the emotional duress that comes with them. It’s a chore sometimes, loving Geneva. I mean, imagine the most irritating person you’ve ever known. Stop now and think.

Who is it? An “ex”, a former roommate, a co-worker, your mother-in-law, your little brother? Take that most irritating human being and ZAP, make them your child! It’s rather nightmarish, really. Our younger daughter Estelle – she’s the axis to our universe. She’s the easiest person to be around. I could list flowery adjectives to describe her all dang day long, but I’ll spare you that. Let’s just say that if everything else in the world ceased to exist, yet I still had my Stella, all would be well and good.

Once upon a rock band, I used to be a chick singer. For about 20 years I made music, traveled, did what I wanted, when I wanted. I finally got mighty sick of that, sick of ME. I was tired of myself. So I got married and then had to answer to “him”. O.K. Guess I can swing with that. Then we traveled to China and brought home Estelle, tiny and underdeveloped, but the most darling baby and so dreamily easy. For several years we enjoyed the most picture perfect of lives. Boy, I was really swingin’ with that. And then….dum dum dum dum….*yes, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb…..I insisted we fetch a sister. Now here’s the scoop on this: We adopted children instead of having bio kids because – frankly, I’m not that proud of my gene pool. Seriously, who needs more of this? Damn it! This is where I wanted to insert the absolute worst photo of myself ever taken and this computer-wack-a-doo system won’t do it!! I’m still so new at this blog world stuff, I get stymied very easily.

Anyway, so that’s how we ended up with The Gypsy Geneva and how I ended up with certainly not very much ME time or ME anything. God is laughing. He gave me the easiest baby in the world who’s turned into the most charming creature imaginable, and to counter that and for His own, sick amusement – he brought me Geneva. Funny guy, that God. He didn’t want me to escape parenthood that easily I guess. Congratulations Big Guy, mission accomplished! For there is no escape from THIS!! A girl who still has ‘bathroom issues’, can’t tell time, has no linear thought, lies like a cheap rug, only loves others as an application, not a feeling – does not understand why people cry and makes me repeat basic parenting mandates over and over and over like she’s never heard them before. And as far as that goes, maybe in her swiss cheese brain each moment is shiny and new.

Glorious day, a gal pal just phoned and forced me back to the real world and asked me to lunch. Panera, here we come! It’s not a tamale, but it’ll do pig, it’ll do….

WOW! I’ve got several new blogs to check out and I’m very happy about it! MOMS, ROCK ON!!! And thanks for checking in with me – I’ll try to get your links into my post…I’m so technically challenged it’s frightening. Hand me a microphone, it’s all good. Hand me a modem…we’re in deep doo doo.

Problem Child

Do you have one?
We have one.
It’s a girl and its name is Geneva. Beautiful name for a Tasmanian Devil, yes?
And it’s entirely not her fault, due to the fact that she was dumped at birth in a 3rd world orphanage. The institution was basically a step up from a concentration camp, and I’m not foolin’ with that description. Anyway, we flew half way around the world and adopted this poor creature when she was almost 7 years old. She’d spent her entire life, her developmental years, neglected and starved and when we found her she weighed a whopping 29 pounds and wore 2-3T clothes at 7 years of age. It was beyond sad. She had a bloated belly with flaccid spindly legs, she boar open soars all over her body, her hair had fallen out in chunks, her lips and nail beds were blue. Later, back in the good old U.S. of A. and in the care of a wonderful pediatrician at the KU Medical Center (Rock Chock Jayhawks!) , the doc said, “I’ve never seen someone with so few red blood cells still be alive.”

Geneva had but one thing going for her; a sizzling smile and gung-ho attitude (from hell, we’ve discovered) – o.k, so that’s actually two things. The smile kept people from killing her and the attitude she used to keep herself alive. Her caregivers back at the Kazakhstan orphanage had given her the nickname “Chuda”, the Russian word for miracle, feminine form. It was her cheerful disposition in a wretched life which earned her that nickname, and God bless the orphanage workers, really. They often work for weeks at a time without pay, trying to keep the children alive on paltry excuses for food. Anyway, time to put away the violins and get to the meat of this here blog.

What in hell do you do when you’ve got a child that is simply the most irritating person on the face of the planet? Wow, that sure jumped gears mighty quick and dirty. And oh, it don’t sound too perty for a mommy to say that, neither. My darling husband and I grapple with this daily, as we’ve spent 5 years trying to ‘fix’ our little Chuda. The first 4 years we did it on our own (well, mostly me, because I’m the mom and everyone knows that the mom is the glue of every damn thing and he just pays for every damn thing. Probably in more ways than one. But I digress…). And so my poor husband, well, he struggles to tolerate her. Her behavior, similar to that of a Labrador Retriever puppy on cocaine – and with Alzheimers – who you cannot please no matter what you do – and with time and age, a defiant streak that leads to violent outbursts of temper, has lead me to eat many a drive-thru fry. Charming, yes? So now, we’re on DRUGS! Yes indeed America, solve it all with some pills washed down with a side of desperation and you’ve got another kid on Ritalin. And do you know what? I’d like to sloppy kiss those drug whores at Ciba-Geigy (whose Ritalin and its sister drugs netted them a modest 3.1 BILLION dollars in 2003). Geneva’s brain, it’s like swiss cheese, man. Information flies around in there, bouncing like super-balls on speed, with no place to find purchase. To watch her try to sit still is painful. And I know kids fidget for Godssake – but this takes fidgeting to a new and harrowing level. She’ll pick at her cuticles until blood pours from them…so then ask her to do a math worksheet. The math sheet becomes history and a lovely example of shredded, bloody paper. The Ritalin has ended those most gory days. I saw her suffering so. If she needed insulin I’d make sure she had it. To me, this is a similar call. She should actually be in the 6th grade now, but can eek along in the 4th grade with lots of help while simultaneously dragging down the Maryland State Assessment tests, much to the chagrin of everyone involved. But I’ve gotta hand it to her – even tho it takes every single brain cell she’s got, that Chuda spirit hangs in there. I tell ‘ya, if it had taken ME a year to learn plus from minus….thats how long it took her. M&M’s on the table, every night for a year, “Geneva, this sign means we ADD M&M’s and this sign means we take them away”….every night, for a year. She got the award for finally learning it and I got….damn old, yep, thats what I got…. Meanwhile, well meaning onlookers, mostly family, insisted that she was “just like so-n-so” who was also very active. Sure.

Well, so what do you do when the most annoying person you know is your own child? And frighteningly, I allow myself to say that out loud because it’s just…it’s just…sooooooo damn true! And I’ll say this again, yet again, its not her fault, its not her fault, its not her fault. She was abandoned like garbage. Unwanted human refuse. Yet when they dumped her, she was still fresh and new. 7 years in a hell hole will turn anyone into a train wreck. Geneva has Reactive Attachment Disorder, Sensory Integration Disorder, severe ADHD, Oppositional Defiant Disorder and we think she was a fetal alcohol baby. So she’s a RAD, SID, ADHD, ODD, FAS kid. WOW! Friggin’ CONGRATULATIONS to all of us!! I’d like to take this special time to send a big SHOUT OUT to the bastards who left her in state care – two sets of family who knew she was there and never once checked on her in 7 years! She could have been better, you know. She didn’t start out with all those acronyms after her friggin’ name. They were put there by poverty, oppressive government, lack of birth control. And now we, as her parents, are trying to erase all those letters after her name and holy crapola it is HARD and is it NOT fun and….and we can’t give up. Even tho we can’t stand her most of the time. And we can’t stand her because all of those disorders I named, all those things WRONG with her, all result in behaviors that are not good. They are not good, my friends. Children can’t raise themselves, they need love, guidance, hell – they need FOOD for pity-sake. My kid didn’t have that stuff, so now she fights an uphill battle in the most competitive society in the world. She’ll give you her last pencil or the only treat she won in class for behaving. Geneva’s birthday presents were mostly opened by her little sister, at Geneva’s insistence. Someone sent her money, she pressed for half to go to her sister. Yet, she’ll steal you blind five minutes later. She’ll shove the hell out of someone not moving fast enuf in the lunch line. She will lie to your face like she went to the O.J. school for sociopaths and took “Deny, deny, deny 101.” So we sit here, between these two really sticky, jabby, uncomfortable boulders which are squishing us until we want to SCREAM. One rock is compassion, the other intolerance. I have no tolerance for liars, I have less respect for stupid people than I care to admit – man whenever I have to go to Wal Mart and observe the teeth to tattoo ratio I feel my own I.Q. drop about 20 flippin’ points – so given that I am such an intolerant bitch, how do I bolster myself to keep working with this child for all eternity? She’s MINE. I signed papers-n-shit. You might be thinking something really mushy and touching right now like it’s ‘love’ or something that will keep me going. Hell no. It’s not about love, because I don’t even know how much I really love her. When someone is annoying you 90% of their living, breathing moments, it kind of squeezes the love right outta there. I, and my darling husband, will keep doing this because if we do not….if we do not…..society will have to ‘deal’ with this child who is a fraction away from being the latest statistic of some horrible sort. She is unpredictable, under-emotional, and disconnected yet angry. What a frightening combination. I will not raise a ‘school shooter’. I will ALWAYS know what is happening in our garage. I WILL monitor her future computer, phone, diary, yes I will. I will dog her thru Mayberry with a pair of cursed binoculars for as long as necessary. She will be dragged to therapy as long as I’m legally able to make it happen. Yet, she has the most gentle ease with developmentally delayed children and she will stand up to stop bullying of others in her presence. Then again, 2.1 nano-seconds later she’ll shove the crap out of someone in her way or simply slug them because they “made her mad.” She is not ‘lost’ yet. We’ve had 5 years to undo the first 7, most developmentally important years. I’ve got about 5 more to go until she’ll be on her way to 18. I promise I’ll do my best to turn out an acceptable facsimile of a person. Since she began medication she has improved at least 60%, maybe even more. Personally I don’t even take aspirin for a headache until it’s been relentless for at least 8 hours, but as far as this little orphan and her whacked out brain go, “better living thru chemistry” I say! What therapy don’t fix, the pharmacy will! Unfortunately, there is no pill for abandonment. No pill for neglect, starved brain cells, or a tortured and lonely soul.

So if you see me in the drive thru, wave and pray will ‘ya? I need all the fries and angels I can get my racked little hands on.

Later, On Tamale Day….

And so I go to the school to pick up my one daughter in a wheelchair, only to find myself standing next to my other daughter who has been sent to the principals office because she wrote, “You should go shit yourself” in another child’s eyeglass case. Apparently another charming little child “told” her to do this after he took the case from another girl’s desk. He got a very succinct finger wagging from me as he sat there in the office and I called him “naughty” right to his smug, nasty face and in front of everyone who happened to be in the office. He looked like he wanted to pop me one, and boy….I just DARE him. He’s in 4th grade and almost as tall as I. Of course, my kid’s not caucasian but this other charmer was black and I’m thinking “race card, race card.” Nobody better pull it. Besides, I don’t t h i n k so. I don’t care if the other brat involved was polka-dotted with horns sticking out of it’s head, as a mother type, I am not about to simply walk past this rugrat like nothing happened. Besides, my ‘lil darling’s written English is still so bad the likelihood of her getting the entire phrase “You should go shit yourself” grammatically correct is astronomically impossible. Thanks for the help, little man. Her version would have gone something like, “Go shit self” or some other caveman-esque variation on a theme. I believe her partner in crime is the same adorable classmate who keeps calling her attention by spouting, “Yo, bitch.” My daughter spent 7 years in a 3rd world orphanage and she’s an absolute train wreck, there’s no doubt about it. But we’re ON IT. We’ve got her in therapy, she’s on med’s, behavior modification is a way of life around here and it wears us the hell out! And she gets away with NOTHING. There are consequences for every misbehavior, and there’s no allowances for greed, disrespect or blatant disregard for the rules. No leeway. However – Huge rewards for good behavior, the life of a Kazakh Queen when she gets it right. But right there in school, little demon children whisper in her warped ears the things she’s not clever enuf to think up on her own. And she does them, because she doesn’t have an original thought in her empty little mind. Something as simple as dropping the “f” bomb in the lunch line, sure, she’s got that covered. Throwing paper wads in the bathroom? You bet. She could go semi-pro. My point being… well, I told the Principal with whom I have a great working relationship, that Geneva needs to be far far away from other naughty doers. She can’t stand up to them, she wants to please them. It’s pathetic. I told her right there in the Principals office, “We are not followers in this family. We are leaders. And we try to make good choices so we can have the best life possible.” I think she heard, “Boing, boing, bang, bip, doo-wah-ditty-wap-ditty-wap-doo”.
If only I had a dime
For every time
She’s heard Mommy’s
Diatribe.

I know for a fact that the Dominican Republic is full of little islands with lots of livable caves inside – I’ve been there, I’ve seen them. Betcha I could hide out there for quite some time, unfound by the masses.

I went to the yummy Mexican eatery all by myself today because I couldn’t find anyone who was free for lunch. I proudly walked in and said, “No one could come to lunch with me today, but I need a tamale, so I’m here anyway!” The staff smiled. Ahhh, the lure of the tamale. Say no more, say no more.

I am so glad I had my tamale today. I just kept thinking about it as I fought the urge to throttle Geneva right there in the front office of her elementary school. It got me thru. And I softly reminded myself, “Yo, beeotch, there are no tamale’s in prison, there are no tamale’s in prison”…….