BIG RANT-letter to a meth addict

You found out you were pregnant, maybe you know who the father is, probably not, because you were most likely high. You may not have even known you were pregnant for a few months, meth has taken over your life. Choices that may seem logical to everyone else, make no sense to you whatsoever. But I ask you this: WHAT THE CRAP!! Why, I ask, WHY are you getting pregnant if you are a drug addict?! I get that you have issues, you cant stop from doing your drug, but I beg of you, don't involve an innocent baby in your freakin' game! You've probably lost every person in your life who meant anything to you because of your lifestyle, you've stolen from them to support your habit, pushed them away when they try to get you help, who is going to be there for you when your addict baby finally comes home with you? Are you prepared for what an addicted baby is like? You cant touch him, because every time he senses your touch, it's like a million needles are piercing his skin. He will cry nearly 24 hours a day, never sleeping because he is craving that fix, you think your withdrawl is bad?! Your son will have morphine to help him, but even that doesn't ease his AGONY. He will cry non stop. You will have to keep him in a dark room because any light pierces to his brain. A whisper can feel like he's up against a speaker at a rock concert. He will refuse to eat. He will lose weight. He will constantly kick his arms and legs, he will turn purple from screaming non-stop. Can you handle that? Knowing that YOU MADE A CHOICE TO DO THIS TO YOUR CHILD, you didn't give a crap about what it would do, you just needed that high. You stayed long enough to check him in, and then before I could come talk to you again, you were gone..If you think I am being to harsh, think again, I am being kind. I see these babies, more and more coming in, and I feel a different person emerging from within myself. I try to have compassion for everyone, their circumstances, but when I see these babies-yours was somehow full term, most are much earlier, sometimes the size of a dollar bill-my heart hurts. I look at the little boy a few beds down whose parents get told that he has to go home to die, they wanted him so badly. They struggled with infertility only to have the cruel draw of having a baby that is too sick, he cant be saved. Whats wrong with you?! Get help. Change your life. Change the cycle that you have started. Live your life for your son, be the mom that HE always wanted, it's his right to live a full and happy life. If you cant get help, if your drug is just too powerful, give him the next best thing-give him up...

Ok, I feel better for the moment. I cant even tell you guys what its like to see these babies in the NICU. It's probably the thing that pisses me off the very most. It's a preventable issue, some of these moms cannot help having their babies 3 and 4 months early, they do everything in their power to try to have a healthy baby, and still nature decides otherwise. Then we get the girls who have done some drug the entire pregnancy, never seeing a doctor, normally a teenager, and they just don't give a crap. I am not lumping every case into this stereotype, we have had a few moms "get" it, but most don't and I thank God that most get taken into states custody and at least have a chance. But we had this one baby who was in there forever, he would get better, through his withdrawl, and then suddenly he would start all over again. The mom swore she was clean, said she had been for a few weeks before the baby was born. She was pumping for the babies feedings, well finally her breast milk was tested, she was not clean. So here we were, working on getting the drugs out of his system and she was feeding it back into him every 2 hours! And you know what the worst part was? As a "breastfeeding" hospital, there was no cause for intervening, we couldn't say or do anything about it. If you have never seen a baby who is addicted, it is the saddest and most infuriating thing EVER.
Ok, enough being pissed off. Thanks for letting me rant...

New Look

So please bare with me as I change up this blog..I will be adding pics shortly, so thanks for your patience! We are really needing to get family pictures taken so that y'all can see that we really do exist. I cant believe how much our family has changed over the last few years. The kids have matured, I have slowly began regaining brain cells as they have gotten older, and Tim has gone bald. LOL, totally on purpose, he's my sexy bald man now.

This weeekend was pretty good. BYU won their game on Saturday, thus the weekend was a success. Some really exciting news, Madisyn got to go into the playland at IKEA for the first time Saturday!!! This may not seem so thrilling to some of you, it was monumental for her and me though. She is almost 4 1/2 and has been potty trained for over a year and a half, yet every time we have gone to IKEA she hasn't been big enough. We cheated a bit, but only like 1/4 of an inch, see, they measure the kids with a measuring type stick like at the doctors office. I had her hair in ponies, and her rubberband was sticking up, the lady was trying to check in like 6 kids and was distracted and did not notice this blunder, YAY for us! She was so excited that she talked everyones ear off, anyone who would listen got "hey, I am big now! I am growing cuz I got to go to the play place at IKEA!" It was pretty cute. This proves that she js finally growing for the first time in over a year, I think I can put away the "tiny person" theory away for now. I really wasn't worried, the doctors and dieticians were really the ones freaking out. After trying everything to get her to gain weight and grow even a centimeter didn't work, I had decided that she would grow in her own time. She still is stuck at nearly 27 pounds, but come on, she came home at 4 lbs, thats a great growth as far as I'm concerned..

I also realized that my kids really are growing up. I know that sounds redundent and silly, but I have been thinking a lot about how my life as a mom has really phased into something completely different. When you have bitty ones, you get into that mode of changing diapers and sleep deprivation and all that goes with that. I dont have babies anymore! I was so used to that phase and now that I am in this new one, I feel kinda lost. I was telling Melissa while we were at IKEA, that I will feel really sad when the day comes that Madisyn doesn't automatically reach up to grab my hand wheile we are walking together. It's true that hindsight is 20/20 and its true when the cute little old ladies stop you in the mall and tell you that time flies and to cherish your little ones. It's just so hard to do when you get caught up in the moment of what has to happen next, instead of what is happening in the now.

Tonight I am making a stop before I go to the NICU. A few weeks ago I had given a little girl whose birthday Chantelle had been invited to, some of my jewelery and hair products as a gift. I included a business card, and apparently my number got passed around. I am meeting several moms so they can buy some product. I am working on my display cases today, I have some fun ideas that I hope will pan out.

Thursday a bunch of the girls and I are going to a midnight showing of Twilight. I know we are nuts, all our kids have school the next day. Whats a little sleep deprivation, right? I wish Carrie were able to come along, she and the clan will be arriving sometime that day or most likely late night. We are so excited to have the Gibsons back home!!! The trip for them has been slow and tiring, but they are all really glad to be coming back as well. They have been gone just shy of four LONG years, its about time guys!!

well hopefully the next time you few readers log on to my blog, you will see updated pictures of my fam. I gotta go tame Madisyn's hair. Shy of hot gluing that girls hair down to her scalp, theres not much hope I'm afraid. She refuses to leave her "pretties" in, she's obsessed with brushing her hair and then it ends up this ball of poofiness! And to top it off, I swear her hair is immune to hair care products, any help out there? Have a great one guys!!

GRRR....

Ever have one of THOSE days?! Well today is one of them for me. I got to start the day out with a meeting at the elementary school with the principal, Jordan's first grade teacher, and the school psychologist. We, if you have read my blog know, Jordan has been our struggle kid. we all have one, admit this now. We held him back a year in kindergarten because he wasn't ready for school. His teacher last year and I communicated everyday about every issue under the sun. Within moments of meeting his teacher this year at back to school night, I spoke to her about all of these things and let her know that we were evaluating for ADD and that I would be giving her the paperwork to track him. She told me that she had been a teacher for a long time (30+ years) and that she had some very sucessful strategies for dealing with "these" kids and please, give her a chance to try them out. Well I was all for it! I know some of you who may read this are thinking, medication is a copout. You don't understand, we have tried every thing we know how. We have tracked his eating and sleeping habits, tried behavior modifications, tried positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, more one on one, YOU NAME IT we have tried it!!! So after 2 weeks of getting phone calls from the principal about everythig from food fights to bullying, we set up this meeting. It went fairly well, but I am just frustrated to find out today that the whole reason his teacher didnt want Jordan on meds is because she had an ADD son who had a bad experience on them. Well, first of all every kid is different, second of all had I known this info, as his parent I would have gone ahead with the meds at the start of the year and he may be doing better now. It's not even his academic issues, he is the smartest, fastest learning kid in the class apparently and she wants to put him into gifted classes, he just cant sit still and so she cant do it. So we went up to the doctors office and got the paperwork for me, the teacher and the psychologist to fill out and the girls are fighting and screaming at eachother the entire way to and from, then halfway home the oil light and warning goes off so I have to haul them out of the car to go into auto zone to get oil. Then I cant get the stupid oil cap off, when I finally do I see it's down a quart. I fill it up, thankfully the light and darn warning bells go off. As I turn onto my street they go off again! GRRR....!! So I dont know whats wrong with the stupid thing!! I made the girls lunch because they say they are starving, do they eat it? NO! they fight over a flippin' McDonalds toy for 5 minutes before my nerves are finally frayed t the point that I took the toy and I opened the kitchen window and I threw it as far as I could!! I cant believe I did that, I kinda feel bad about it now, not that the stupid toy is gone, but that the neighbor is going to find it and wonder where the crap it came from LOL! Well I gotta go and take Lex to school and sign forms for the psychologist to "evaluate" Jordan.. Wish me luck, and if any of you have any ideas on things that maybe I haven't tried before the medication, lemme know!!

A 2 day phenomenan

I know, your thinking, "2 days in a row?! Have you been home bound or duct-taped to your chair?!" Thankfully, I have not. I just realize that I really do need to be better about posting. So all three of you who read this will get more time on the computer ;).
I thought it was funny to share a view this morning. We all know that some sort of girl/boy programming is already in us when we are born, right? Meaning, there have been studies showing that even if a kid is raised in a completely gender free environment and then presented with certain gender specific toys such as a doll or truck, girls will almost always go to the doll and the boys to the truck. It's how your 2 year old son knows to use his bitty hand as an assault weapon even if he's never ever seen a gun in all his little life! Well today I witnessed something pretty funny. I am the neighborhood mom, my mom was the same way and I really don't know why this happens-maybe I need to be meaner or something...Anyways, all the neighborhood kids come to my house in the morning before school. This morning Chantelle and her friend Cheyanne were headed out the front door when I heard this little squelch and saw them both jump backwards a couple of feet and point at the door. "MOM!!!! There is a HUMONGOUS spider on the door!" Chantelle hollers. I, who never had issues with any bug or animal until I saw the blessed movie arachnophobia, jumped up to view this demon that would prevent me from going anywhere in the neighborhood of my front door for the rest of the day, when Tyler's best friend Colby says-very manly for a 12 year old-"lemme take a look at that". Without another word, he went into the bathroom, came back with a TINY square of tissue, and killed the beast. You could hear the crunch!! I thanked him profusely and the kids went on their way to school. So do you all think that spider-killing is an automatic gender programming cuz if not I really want to personally thank his father for programming him at such an early age to protect all womankind from the arachnids of this world, his wife will also be thankful!!
I forgot to share something that I was told about at the NICU the other night that was pretty dang hilarious. One of the charge nurses on labor and delivery was kind of swamped with all the ladies who had delivered or were near delivery. One of her patients who had already given birth kept pushing her call button and was seemingly impatient with the wait, so she went in as soon as she could. When she walked in the room, the girl immediately says "could you please burp me?!" and of course, the nurse looked at her with wide-eye bewilderment, and the girl says "I'm having trouble with some gas, could you just pat my back for a minute?" and she was completely SERIOUS!!! So the poor nurse who has no earthly idea what is appropriate in this kind of situation, obliges her and sure enough after a moment she burped, thanked her and the nurse walked out! Can you imagine?! All of thee nurses thought it was so hilarious, that one of them came in the next morning with this pretty wrapped present for the nurse. When she opened it, the whole floor erupted with laughter when they saw the HUGE burp cloth that had been made for her!!!!!
well I hope that all of you have a great day, I get to run errands and organize-yay me-try not to be jealous. I'll think of you!

Holy Long Time Batman!!

So it has been literally forever since I have updated this blog. I suck. I know that this has been established in other posts, but I had to reiterate it because of my laziness these last months. So, life has still gone on. I sometimes feel like nothing ever changes, so why bore y'all with the mundaneness of it? But, this morning I had to do the Heimlich maneuver on my 7 year old Jordan and it scared the pants off of me!! You know, you get think that when you get into that situation, your gut instincts kick in and all will be ok. Uh, yeah, if your not performing it on YOUR kid!! He had gotten one of Tim's butterscotch candies and inhaled it, apparently it lodged right smack in there blocking his airway, I had to do it three times to dislodge it. I am still shaking, nothing makes you realize the thin space that life and death occupies like watching your child turn colors and flop around. The ironic thing is that only he and Lexi are truly the only ones who ever scare the crap outta me. October is proof of this fact. It started with Lexi stepping on an old rusty nail outside, it went through her shoe then into her toe. It was pretty deep, so I treated it and took her in to the instacare on the advice of her Pede's office-apparently there are some weird issues with nails and kids feet that are too lengthy to get into, but they are scary. So she gets a tetanus shot, this is Wednesday. Saturday comes rolling along, cleaning his room (don't ask how or why this got into his room, he's a boy and collects "stuff") Jordan steps on a rusted safety pin the size of Texas, looking like an antique first edition of the safety pin mind you, so off we go to the instacare once again-same foot too. Wednesday comes rolling around, yeah take a deep breath, and the day is going well. Lexi has the chore of putting the clean dishes away from the dishwasher. I was in the playroom right next to the kitchen when about quarter to 5 all 5 kids start screaming hysterically. This happens often, you know what I mean, kids scream and fight and irritate eachother, so I didn't immediately jump up. Within seconds though I could sense something wasn't right and ran into the kitchen where the kids were pointing at Lexi who was dumbfounded in the middle of the all the kids, her arm hanging to her side, blood flowing nicely to the floor. Again, you imagine that all your logic and first aid common sense would kick in, and believe me, I have assisted at horrible car crashes with all of that intact in the appropriate moment. Not when it's your child. I rushed outside after holding her arm together with both of my hands screaming for help from my now scared to death neighbor. She of course, not having it be her child had all her smartness intact and was able to calm me down. Apparently what had happened-and let this be a lesson to all of you with plugged in kitchen aides or Bosch machines-she had been putting the mixer blade on the machine instead of in the drawer when it turned on. She hadn't finished clipping it on yet and in her mind that was dangerous, she said later that she was afraid it was going to fly off and hurt one of the other kids and she loves our family so much that she didn't want that to happen (that was one of my proudest mom moments and yes I discreetly bawled when she explained this to me), she said she would rather be hurt then have any of us cry. So in her 5 year old mind the best thing to do was stick her arms in the blades to prevent that. Her left arm got stuck between the blade and the wall of the mixer and it was explained that the pressure was so great that it basically split like a hotdog in the microwave, all the way down to the bone. meanwhile she had stuck her right arm through the "spokes" of the blade and it twisted that arm. They initially thought she had broken both arms and may require surgery. Thankfully it had missed the tendons, I got to watch her tendons moving when she moved her hand, that was kinda cool. She decided that we needed to have a family talk when we got home from the hospital, when I asked her what we needed to talk about she said "I think that some jobs are just grownup jobs and that kids cant do everything. And we should never plug that thing in until we use it" WOW, great insight, why the crap did her mom not think of leaving the "thing" unplugged until use?! So please leave them unplugged, it was a freak accident for sure but take heed nonetheless. She had 2 sprained arms and 30 stitches, and now is having some movement issues but other than that she's ok. So, where was I? Wednesday, you'd think that is enough child trauma to last years. Apparently not for us. Saturday comes rolling around, you guessed it, Jordans turn. Madisyn threw a play john deere tractor at his head and split it open. Back to the instacare...At this point I am seriously waiting for a knock on the door from DCFS!!! I got the choice between stitches or glue, we went for the glue baby. If anything, I can honestly say that my life with my kids is always a grand adventure full of expensive co pays and panic, hey, that could very well sum up motherhood!
I went to the NICU last night for parent support after a while away. I had forgotten how much I love that work, the girls are so great. And it's kinda nice to know that we are really helping to alleviate some of the stress that these parents go through while having a baby in the NICU. For anyone who hasn't had that experience, thank the stars, it's the most emotionally trying and draining thing in this world. The constant ups and downs and unknowns are insane. When Jordan was in the NICU (the first of 3) it felt like our world was ending. Being told that these incredible doctors who we rely on to know all, didn't know what was wrong with your baby and he could die does something to how you view everything. If you can imagine having your beating heart torn out of your chest as you watch, times that by a million and you can get a taste of it. You think about it and you wonder how this tiny thing that you just met can define your everything, how is it possible? I don't thing I'll ever understand the love between mother and child. This same little boy that I could have lost today, he has never stopped fighting. Sometimes I wish he wouldn't fight so damn hard everyday, but I chalk it up to his desire to be here. He is my "struggle" child, I am so thankful to have him and all my kids in my life no matter what though. Hug your kids today, remember those first few moments when your world was that child, it's so easy to forget those feelings when they are being defiant and disobedient! It's so easy to forget that when you are worrying about those things that you cant change, but when we figure out that love is all that matters in the long run, it can make those things seem so insignificant...
Ok, enough about that. I kinda hollered at Jordan after that was all over and gave him a lecture about sneaking hard candy. I should have hugged him and told him how much I love him and how important he is in my life instead..I need to apologize to my son now, I pray that I am never too proud to tell my kids I am sorry and that I messed up. I think I'll go make a card for him and take it to school...