Just a few thoughts

1. Last night ended my 7th ten week session of volunteering for MELD and I think if I am going to continue volunteering then I have to talk to someone because some changes needed to be done.
   
2. Why does my husband insist on talking so much about technical stuff when I just don't understand nor do I care. As long as it works then I am good.
   
3. Just two more days until September is here and hoping I don't get the birthday blues. Izzy's birthday is in September.
   
4. How come adoptive parents blogs sometimes attract 300 or 400 and up followers but I don't know if I can think of one birthparent blog that has over 400 followers. Not that I am bitching I do have quite a few.
   
5. Why did I get paired up with a client who is also an adoptive parent?
   

A man and his Mother.. An adopted son's search

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I took this book and my dog with me for a walk on the bike path. It was really a beautiful day. It wasn't too hot but plenty comfortable enough to be outside walking and looking and listening to the sounds of the river.

My dog and I haven't been the most active this summer. I am hoping that we can get back to my YMCA days now that school is in and I am working more and won't feel like I can't afford the darn gas. :) Well, anyways, we would walk for a while and then sit and I would read and she would mostly watch the people with their dogs cause she always has my back. I read a good part of it there. Sometimes, I sat on a bench and other times I sat on the ground so my dog could lay in my lap.

I wanted to take a few parts from this book and let you read it. First, though, Tim Green is a NFL football player and a writer. He was adopted at birth and had horrible nightmares. He had great parents but always felt like he couldn't achieve enough. I don't think it had anything to do with how his parents treated him. Tim didn't have the desire to know his birthmom until a mother of a girlfriend broke down and told him why she was so fond of him. She had lost a son to adoption and always wondered about it and tried tried to find him without any luck.



Tim was reading Charlotte's Web and sobbed over the ending.

He wrote, "You don't understand," I sobbed, cowering alone under the covers and unable to stop my crying. "you... don't...understand."
In all honestly, I didn't understand myself. Being sad is one thing, but hysterics are quite another. But the thing that bothered me about Charlotte's death more than anything were the little babies she left behind.

It was such a wonderful day to walk and relax and escape spending time with my husband. He isn't working and I like my time alone and don't get it too much anymore. It feels like an escape from FB and blogging but I kind of thought it's a little weird that I choose adoption related books to escape with.

I guess it's just cause so much of my life has been consumed by adoption and negativity that I feel the most at home when I read real life stories about adoption coming from birthparents or an adoptee. It reenforces that birthmom's are with the thought process and the emotional stress of getting into an relationship with. It tells me that their are second chances in life and happy endings for reunions with birthparents and adoptees.

One very interesting part of this book is that there is a point when he is telling a certain somebody about his achievements in life that he finally realizes that he has had a good life and is a success story. I won't tell you what it took or who it took for him to come to this realization about himself.

new feature?

I don't know if it's a new feature that you can add pages to blogs but I love it! I added a page about me and a page about MELD. Feel free to check them out and if anyone has any suggestions on another page that you would like to explore putting to make information more easily found on my blog.

new changes

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My son started middle school this week. I wish I could go back in time and have him being starting all over again. I want to protect him from the cruel children. I don't think they allow over protective parents to hang children from their toes when they be mean to mine.

I stressed this day and it's ironic that I don't recall the first day of my oldest son starting middle school. I can't remember the first school. I remember the second middle school but I didn't know it was the second. He must have had to start at a different school when we bought our house. You all probably think I am a bad Mom, right? I don't know if my anziety and forgetfulness is cause of my youngest sons specialness or if it's the divorce or cause I never quite got the hang of middle school. It was where school went from so so to torture. I was lost and hated it!

We have been pretty broke lately and I finally gave in to trying to open up my hours to work more. I was only working 20 hours a week cause I was staying home with my grand daughter. I liked this arrangement when my husband was working too, but now with him just getting unemployment we just don't make enough to pay all our bills and have any kind of life.

This was my first week that I was at 40 hours and it looks like it's going to stick. I can't say if it will stick for a month or longer. It's hard to say with the elderly. I am grateful for the hours and basically it's doubled my income. However, I am feeling bitter cause I feel pissed that I am spending three days in a row gone from 9:30 am to 10:30 pm or later. The latest I would come home is 11:30 pm. I basically have a four hour shift and then on two out of the three days I have a two hour break where I stay in the area to save gas and then go to work for an average of 7 or so hours. I am at 40 but 32 hours come from the three days and I find myself feeling really pissed off.

I know I shouldn't be. My husband is taking care of the house and our grand daughter and my son. But it just does tick me off when I am suppose to pay for his smoking habit but there are much more important bills that need to be paid or things we need.

I am grateful to be working and hope the hours keep on. It seems like my company is starting to think about the employees more. As soon as I brought it to her attention that she forgot to give me one of my normal shifts she fixed with other hours which lead to my 20 hours more each week. She said, you should have told me your husband lost his job. Before this the other lady, would say something like and your point is? i am really hoping that my anger goes away once I start seeing paychecks with full time hours.

Also, my company used to hire more people even though they had people who might want to work more. They sent out notice if anyone wants more hours to call cause of changes in availability and the rise of client hours that we need more help. I think it was great that they gave the current employees heads up that they could be working more if they desire.

Sorry for the ranting.

new school

Yesterday, my oldest son, Alex, started high school at an alternative high school. It just happens to be the same school that I spent three years going to about a year after I had my daughter. I went there for two reasons.

I skipped too much of middle school and was behind because of it.

After losing my daughter and surviving the first year, I was emotionally drained and I had nothing else to give at a regular school setting. I just didn't have anymore in me to get past the craziness of how mean people could be and I needed to be in a more comfortable environment. This is where I found Pam who is a retired Math teacher who I am in contact with even now as I am 35 years old. She fills a lot of my Mom void. I just love her.

Back to my son. Luckily, for me, the person who was my business teacher and he actually came to my first wedding is over seeing the operations of the school. There is at least two other staff members that are still working there after all these years.

My agreement is that Alex will spend Sunday thru Wednesdays here every week because this gets him closer to the school. A down side of an alternative school is that there isn't busing. He is only is school about five or six hours a day. It's too early to do the math. The first couple days, I am driving him but after that I expect him to take the bus. I may blog more on that another day.

The rest of the week he will be at his Dad's and have a longer bus ride unless his Dad or fiance (hate that word and her too :) ) drives him to school.

I told my son to catch the bus home but his Dad gave him an out to get a ride if they could come get him and she did. So, we will see what happens today.

It's our goal that Alex will get a job after school because he has fines to pay from skipping school and going joy riding. This new school gives him plenty of time for a job because they don't issue homework. The only time they may need outside hours to do school work would maybe to study for a test. His living situation may make it harder to find a job but anything is possible if we are willing to work around it.

Alex is in the diploma department right now but that could change because he needs three years to earn it and there is a chance the school won't be allowed to issue them giving us no other choice but to go for a GED.

Alex got sick yesterday right after school which seems to be something that happens when he has to to school. Also, I am seeing habits that make a little more sense on why he would miss a bus. Today, he stayed downstairs, in his bedroom, until five minutes before it was time for me to drive him and started making sandwiches to eat.

I am really hoping the arrangement of Alex staying with us more works and he starts to take school seriously. This school has classroom sizes of about ten and if he can't make it there then he can't make it anywhere. This is his last stop for an education and he is running the risk of being kicked from his Dad's when he is of age if he doesn't get the grades.

voluntering

I skipped my normal Monday routine of volunteering for ME*LD cause my son had a back to school event for 6th graders. It was there that my oldest son told me he attended this same middle school for the beginning of his middle school years. I am pretty shocked that I don't remember this. My only excuse is that I think this is about the same time my first husband walked away and our family fell apart.

We got back home in time that I could have ran up to the church but I had half way prepared dinner and thought that hopefully with the third volunteer (the black girl that the driver thought would connect better with the kids) would be there and it would be enough people.

My sister called me when she was finished babysitting and told me it was crazy. She was all alone and one Mom refused to leave her baby with her cause of not enough people. This resulted in the person who runs the Mom's group to call the driver in to help.

My sister said he held a sleeping baby and didn't help at all. She said she couldn't even change babies diapers cause she had too many children trying to juggle.

When she was cleaning up and leaving the lady that runs the Mom's group was waiting for her cause the driver didn't. I guess it's policy that he not leave the volunteers. I don't know how many times I was left on my own leaving the daycare.

I think the way they are treating the volunteers is just plain wrong. Most people get paid to put up with somethings but we are not paid. We give our time and while I don't always expect it to be fun and easy but they should try to keep us happy cause they can see volunteers are not easy to come by. As of right now, if my sister wasn't willing to volunteer, I would most likely quit too. I don't mind taking time away from my family and work because I love what this organization does but if I can't provide a safe environment and have even a small amount of pleasure from doing it then I won't keep giving my time.

love reading about open adoptions

I love blogs that share about their open adoptions and I am always amazed at how this adoptive Mom goes the extra step to try to keep contact with her children's birthfamily. She just had a party with her 3rd daughter's family. You can check out her blog here.

Another adoptive Mom that I enjoy reading about open adoption blogs here. She has the cutest little girl.

I love adoptive parents that honor and keep their agreements when it comes to openness. I love it more when they really get that open adoptions and accepting their child's family is the best for the child. I love it when adoptive parents can get past all the stages of weirdness that they may go through while they work on the relationships.

I can't believe I am up to 147 followers! It's awesome that slowly my followers rise up. To celebrate my new full time hours even if it's just for a week or two. Hopefully, it's long term for now. Well, anyway for every new follower I get to my blog I will donate 2.00 of baby items MELD. They offer help to young Mom's and I love buying baby items. It will be two weeks, before I see the paycheck of full time hours and at that pay day two weeks from yesterday I will spend up to twenty bucks for the MELD organization.
Then, I will post a picture of the baby items that I purchased.

My job has put me in some interesting clients over the five years. I have seen things that I would most likely ever be a part of. My client lives in a retirement community and donated a large sum of money for a chapel onsite and they made a big deal out of it and basically I was able to sit by her at the Groundbreaking event. The mayor and other important people were there too.

My client was able to turn dirt with the shovel but I didn't go up there with her. I let a strong man take her up there. I think that gives her more dignity than having a caregiver help her. Even though, I am not super religious, I thought it was a lovely way thing to do and I loved her thoughts on how she might as well donate it while she was alive to see it being done.

It seems just when I get bored and frustrated with my job something comes along to renew my spirits to keep on doing caregiving. It's not an easy job. One thing, that can be hard is that we are expected to talk to them as we are friends but we are not ever suppose to say anything sad or anything that could be negative about our lives. Sometimes, I feel like we could just make up a life and be whoever we want to be for that day or the days ahead.

As of right now, I will be seeing this lady on a very regular basis so that really means basically doubled my paycheck for the week and/or weeks to come. When it comes to the elderly one never really knows how the future will go down.

It's not a perfect world we live in

When I see birthmom's choose adoption because they want to be a stay at home Mom and not have their child in daycare or with other people five days a week. It makes me so sad. I know that the majority if not all birthmoms have several reasons for learning towards adoption but this statement still makes my heart ache for the babies and them.

Not everyone can be a stay at home Mom. I know it might be the best but the reality is that we don't live in the times of Leave it to Beaver where June Cleaver is home all day to see her kids off to school and home when they get home. Quite a few couples, even married couples have to work to make ends meet. Maybe, some couples do it because they want a career and maybe some do it because they don't see another option. Also, there maybe a few that just don't feel secure living off of one income. What if the car breaks? Or what if something in the house breaks? What if what if this or that? They might feel that they can make it but worry about the quality of life of being stuck at home so broke that they can't splurge for a happy meal or a pony ride.

Between my husband and I we provide full time care for our grand daughter while her parents bring home the bacon. My stepdaughter misses her baby and can't wait to pick her up and get home with her. She has told us that she feels better about work knowing that she is with people that love her and her daughter loves coming over.

We try to make things better for her by keep her updated on our activities. Send her pictures during the day. Also, if we are going to do something that is possibility something that I think a Mom should have a say in I ask if it's okay first. For example, when I thought of taking my sweet granddaughter to the daycare on Sunday where I work, I asked if it was okay first.

Maybe, it's hard to think of the baby as anything but a baby. However, they do grow up. Possibly as early as three or four some mom's and Dad's will leave their children in preschool for a few hours a day. By the time, they are in kindergarten, they will be gone for at least six hours of school.

Maybe, the statement of not wanting their child to sit in daycare or with other people for eight hours a day rubs me the wrong way cause then I get to thinking if we all went by that rule then my grand daughter would have been placed for adoption. She may spend a lot of time with us while her parents work and loves us. But their is no question about the love she has for her Mom.

Also, both of my sons wouldn't have stayed with me with that thought process. I am a working Mom. It makes matter worse that because I can't always cover all the school days off that I am a second shifter three days out of the seven days a week. That means on school days I didn't see my son much at all. Now, with middle school I will see him only in the morning before school. It helps that I do work Saturday so honestly I am only away for the full days twice a week. It's what I have to do to support him. It's the best I got and I have to be the best I can be at other times.

My final thoughts is that it's not a perfect world we live in and if we all wait till our world is perfect then the will suddenly be a lot of couples who can't get pregnant and carry a baby to term. Don't wait for a perfect life or us not so perfect people might get all of lives joys.

Do black children relate better to black caregivers or does it not matter

I am asking that question cause the ME@LD driver suggested that we would have a easier time with the children if he brought in a black volunteer that does it on another night.

She came today and I recalled his earlier comment. I lost track at how many children we had but most the children were pretty well behaved and if they cried they were easy to calm down. One of the children actually tried to hide from her. I really don't see how a child or two that has been in my care each week for a year or more could suddenly like her better because of skin color.

I personally believe that some of the children want me over my sister and the other volunteers is because I am a Mom. I think children can sense the experienced Mom. I don't mean to suggest that my sister isn't good with the kids and that they don't like her. They are getting used to her and love to be held by her. It didn't happen overnight with me, my sister or this volunteer.

When it was over the driver asked how it was with the new girl and I said it's always nice with a 3rd person. It's just a fact. Three childcare workers (volunteers) is better than two. Just like two was better than one when I was the only one there for a long time.

I don't think this is so much about color as it about him not wanting to be called back to help take care of the children. Whatever it is though I like having the 3rd person. I am just not going to play into it that the children will relate to her better if a black person is there.

I don't blame him. He drives the Mom's and the babies around. He wants his free time while they are in group.

My husband thinks his comments are rude and it should be brought up. But I have to see him each week and I don't want to stir trouble so I rather just blog about it.

Just for the record. I don't mean any offense and I hope nobody takes this the wrong way. I agree a 3rd person is helpful but I don't agree that a screaming baby that isn't feeling well, wants his momma or is just going through a state of separation anxiety. Most of the babies that do this screaming about between the ages of 7 or 8 months baby up to a year. Most of the time even though they are screaming in your ear they don't want to be put down. I have had the same babies grow up and get past that stage and still sometimes craved to be held but without the screaming.

Talk to me!

I haven't came up with any good blog ideas for a while now. Anyone have any topics or questions that you would want me to address. It could be about adoption or totally unrelated to adoption.

FWD:

My son never used his poncho at camp and I joked with him that he would have to play in the rain so he could get some use from it.

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My son came home from camp and he said he had a really fun time. He makes me so proud and I am hoping for a good start to middle school.

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Ranting

Normally, I try to keep things that go on between my parents and myself private in the private blog to try not to chance hurting their feelings but screw them. Why do I care if I hurt them or not. They don't care if they step on me.

I invited my older sister and her girls over for pizza cause they came from out of town. I felt like I should invite my whole family. So, that would be my Mom, my little sister and little brother. I didn't invite my Dad because of the whole divorce thing plus I didn't want to spend tons on pizza.

My Mom wasn't there long. She had an excuse to leave early. It might have been a real good one cause she is moving. She is letting the bank take her dead husband's house and renting one.

Anyways, we are all just hanging outside and I have to tell you that I loved seeing my sister and her girls. They have grown so much and are beautiful. I wish we didn't have so many miles between us. Well, anyways, my sisters are showing off pictures on their phone and one that goes around is the picture of Izzy and my sons from when they met during a bowling outing. When it got around to my Mom, my sister handed the phone to her and she looked at it and really didn't say anything.

She didn't stay long enough to eat pizza and she went on to hug pretty much everyone goodbye and say goodbye but she left my house without even so much of a goodbye.

Is it cause she hasn't been filled in on the reunion with my daughter? Maybe. But why should I? She is the one who pushed for adoption because she couldn't let me live with my Dad cause she needed a babysitter for her kids.

She is the one who told me to keep my daughter a secret and that's what made me feel shameful of my daughter and adoption all my life. Screw her! The only way she is going to meet my daughter is if my daughter wants to meet her. I will not ask my daughter if she wants to meet the grandmother who couldn't be bothered. So, Izzy will have to come up with the idea all on her own.

My Dad probably thought he could away with not being mentioned cause he didn't do anything. Well, your not so innocent Dad. He knew my Mom was a shit and just let his kids not have a parent around. I can forgive you for that.

However, after reunion and after my daughter is willing to meet you in person your still not counting her as a grandchild. You say you have 8 grandchildren. Well, newsflash you have nine. But he doesn't need to be bothered by it because I am not going to ask or pressure my daughter to committing to a date to meet. She said, she would but she has to make the suggestion because I have a feeling she was going to do it cause she thought I was willing. Well, I am only willing as long as I think she wants to do it. Well, I think she doesn't care one way or another and besides she doesn't make the count as a grandchild to either side.

Oh and my stepmom who has facebook who I don't want to friend cause never mind I won't say it. She only lists 2 grandchildren. Those would be the ones that are related to her.

I also found out that my Mom was taking my nieces to the fair. I am not jealous that she does that with them cause she is their grandmother but she has never babysat, never taken my kids to dinner, never taken them a movie, never taken them to a fair. She has went as far as not to say hello to them when we run into her at a restaurant. They live 12 hours away. We live 20 minutes or less away. I don't know why I get so worked up about her. She isn't worth it.

I always try to think if I invite my sisters and brother and not Mom how would she feel. Well, I am done wondering how she is feeling. I don't give a damn. She can live in her guilt and continue to ignore me and my family cause she can't face reality that she screwed the fuck up.

Notice if any family members did find this blog and read this. I am not mad at my sisters and brother. But I am done being a nice guy.

On the way home, my son said Mom they didn't count Izzy and wasn't she the second grand child born. I said, yea, I know and yes she is 29 days younger than the first grand daughter.

new school

In the past, I have blogged about how my oldest son is failing high school and the plan was to try to get him in an alternative high school to graduate. We took him yesterday and he had to take a couple tests to see where he is on tests scores. His reading is a 12 grade level and we won't even talk about math. It wasn't pretty.
They really tried to push for him to get a GED and said he could probably have it by December but I really want to see him get a diploma. I graduated at the same school and the person that is over seeing the program was my business teacher. They said it would take another three years to get credits and don't know if it's the right place for three years. I feel that there will already be a stigma about the diploma not being as good cause it came from an alternative school. I always feel uncomfortable when people in my town ask where I graduate from. A big part of that is that I don't want to get into why I ended up there. The truth was emotionally I had nothing else to give at a normal public school. I was drained.

Well, anyways, my son has stopped fighting the idea of the school now that he has been there and spoke to people. The average class size will be ten or under and they have an average of 40 students.

The biggest hurdle is going to be my son deciding that he wants to be in school and learn. The second hurdle will be getting to school. He will have to take the city bus. It was been agreed upon that my son won't come over to my place on the normal weekend. His time with me will be during the school week since the school is pretty close to me. However, it still means taking the bus if we can't take him. It will be all on him to decide that he isn't above taking the city bus.

There is a chance that this school will be no longer to offer credits for graduation so it's possible he may have to go for the GED.

Sleep away camp

We signed up my youngest son for camp at a local park that was one a battle ground for training for the world war 2. It was called camp grant. This environmental park has been doing field trips for schools ranging just one day to a sleeping there for a few days with the school. I stayed there but don't recall how many days. It was sort of a scary thing but a very cool thing to do.

I dropped my son off this morning and on Thursday night we have family night and on Friday afternoon he comes home. My son is special needs but doesn't need a lot of help. But there were keeping his issues in mind and said they would place in the group that could give that support.

I am a little nervous with him being gone at camp. Mostly, I think I will really miss him. I was a little worried that his appetite would cause him to feel like he was being starved to death but with our new snacking routine things have slowly improved. He sometimes would wait an hour or two after breakfast to ask for his snacks of the day and the fighting and pleading for food has gone down quite a bit. Actually, on Sunday, he forgot to ask at all and didn't have snacks between meals.

I never got around to blogging about my volunteering night for MELD last week. It was just my sister and I and nine children. All but three were babies. A couple of the babies were walking but in my eyes they are still babies. The other children were between 2 and half up to five years of age.

It was a crazy night. We had to call the driver to come help us with the babies. A lot of them were crying and he said he was going to see about getting a volunteer from another night to come help on Monday night. He actually said, he wondered if the children didn't know how to react or relate to us because he doesn't know how many of them see white people. I was a little offended but I know that I have had many children snuggle with me. I have has many children smile and be happy. Yea. I have had some screamers too though.

One baby puked on my sister and I was trying to take care of two babies and for the life of me all I wanted to do was laugh. I controlled my giggles cause I didn't want to tick my sister off. Well, it didn't pay for me to laugh at her getting puked on cause one of the babies I was dealing with puked on me.

We had a couple babies including a newborn that we hadn't seen yet. I love seeing the new babies but in reality it's another young parent trying to balance life as a new Mom so it's not all good.

I was shocked to see that one of the babies that I started taking care of when he was about six weeks old has learned how to walk. It's pretty cool watching the babies go from new born to crawlers to walkers and now one of the young children is currently getting potty trained.

It's August now and that means summer is coming to a close. It makes me kind of sad. I love the fun moments of summer of not worrying about early mornings and homework and early bedtimes. I love the pool. We have stayed pretty busy with the local pools and have done some interesting things due to being able to purchase a packet of fun from our park district. It has allowed us to do many things that would otherwise be unaffordable.

We been talking a lot about my son going to camp on Monday. He will be gone until Friday. It's the first time he has been away from home that long. We went shopping today for a few things that they are suggesting he bring with them. It seems like a long list for only five days though.

Today, in the mail came more information about the retreat I am going to be going on in late September. It's getting more excited for it. I also have a list of suggested items to bring. I am really excited but nervous at the same time. It's just a couple weeks after Izzy's 20th birthday so I am hoping it helps keep me focused on something good compared to stressing over her upcoming birthday.

retreat offer

I blogged about an offer for a retreat. You can read about it here. The retreat offer has been hanging over my head every since I found out about it. I really want to go cause I really feel like I need a break away from my family. I hope that doesn't sound bad.

It's was also kind of scary. I have never been away from home from my husband or kids. They have gone and been without me but not the other way around.

I find comfort that it's in the same town and we will probably drive by there sometime to see it with my own eyes. I find comfort that it's a retreat center and not a huge hotel that I would fear getting lost in.

I got a little extra money cause my home owners insurance decided to almost double the rate and it was paid out of my escrow but I wasn't happy about my home loan payment going up so I found insurance for a much cheaper rate and fired the old company. When they were sorry that they couldn't keep me as a customer. I said, "I am sorry too, but my pay rate hasn't doubled and I can't allow yours too."

So, my husband told me to pay for my retreat. I had to call and see if their was room still for one person before I sent off the check. So, it's not a while yet, but I will be going on the retreat for Mom's of special needs children.

So, I am excited about the retreat but kind of sad that summer is coming close to an end. I am not looking forward to my youngest being in middle school.