Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

I was chatting with Karen on Twitter last night when she told me about entering a sponsorship opportunity, hosted by An Island Life and on Barefoot Mommies, for BlogHer.

My jaw dropped at the amount. Energizer is offering $2000 sponsorship for BlogHer expenses. OMG. This is the stuff that dreams are made of!

My first thought was ‘Thanks Karen. Well, here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into,” because, of course, now I have to enter it. That’s a lot of money when it comes to a conference on the other side of the continent and in another country. I know there’s no place like home, but who doesn’t want to experience NYC at least once?

So when I woke up this morning, I looked in the mirror and asked myself ‘Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?”. Maybe.

But then again, what do I have to lose? I wish I had unlimited everything at my disposal, but it’s not like I’m Bond….James Bond or anything. And in lieu of a sports car with guns in it, $2000 would be awesome.

It would certainly help out more than just me. It’s not like I’m being greedy, even though greed, for lack of a better word, is good. $2000 would cover the room costs and give my three roomies some extra spending money too. Just think of how many martini’s $2K would buy (Shaken, not stirred, of course)

I could also use some of that money to buy a couple of Energizer Smart Chargers.  Because 4 people in a room, + 4 laptops, +4 cameras, + 4 cell phones, + 4 of a lot of other things = a lot of battery power.

But then I realized, Houston, we have a problem. I have to come up with something interesting enough to grab their attention.

I’m not the type to jump up and down on a couch screaming ‘show me the money!‘

I really don’t have any special amazing talents. It’s not like I see dead people (that’s Vista’s forte).

I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.

So, I’m really hoping An Island Life and on Barefoot Mommies read this post and immediately think “You had me at ‘hello’”.

But even if I don’t win, we’ll always have Paris NYC

**I’ve hate asking you guys to retweet anything for me, but I’m asking now, cause, OMG, $2000!  Could you let Kailani and BarefootMomma know that they should pick me for one of the sponsorship opportunities and use the hashtag #energizer?  I’ll love you forever!  xoxo**

I’m not purposely ignoring my blog. I’ve been honestly busy. Not in a ‘woe is me, I shant have a moment to myself’ sort of way. More of a ‘GoDaddy hosting sucks balls and half the people I know have been hacked so I’ve been spending hours restoring blogs’ sort of way.

But there’s been lots of stuff going on that I want to write about.

Like we had Vista’s first appointment with the preschool treatment program at the Children’s hospital. And the team of specialists (OT, PT, Speech, Psychology) rock. I was seriously impressed. And that takes a lot. They get her and immediately zeroed in on her weak points and we’ll find out this week what their planned therapy strategy is going to be for the next couple months. This makes me oddly giddy to have a great group of people working with her.

And since we’ve had Vista on her anti-seizure meds, she’s been talking more and more. And the results of that? Freakin hilarious!

Conversations with Vista:

Vista: “My boobies are up here and mommy’s boobies are down there”

Me:  “uhhhh… did I seriously just get dissed by a two year old?”

Vista: “What happened to my leaf??

Me:  “I don’t know.  What?”  (having no idea what she’s talking about)

Vista: “It turned into a wolf.”  *big pout*

Me:  “…….”

Vista:  *pointing to a roll of toilet paper*  “POP-A-WEASEL!”  (aka ‘pop goes the weasel.  aka Vista’s version of abracadabra)

Me:  “…….”

Vista:  “There!  Now it’s a polar bear.”

Me:  “……”

Vista:  “Wahhhhhhhh wahhhhhhhh”  *fake crying*

Me:  *immitating her because I’m really mature like that*  “Wahhhhh wahhhhh”

Vista:  “No!  You can’t cry!!  I want to cry!!”

Me: “……”

Yeah, life is a barrel of laughs around here.  Because, really?  If you can’t laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at?

Mama bear instinct. Most mothers have it. That need to protect, not only our own children, but any child we see being neglected or abused.

I used to be very vocal in my judgment of parents who weren’t, in my view, perfect.

That, of course, would be before I had a child with special needs.

And let me digress for a moment and say something about those two words ‘special needs’. I’ve always hesitated to use them in regard to Vista. Outwardly she appears normal. Most people passing her on the street would never guess she’s anything but. She looks just like your kid, and your kid, and yours. Only she’s not.

Did you spend an hour this morning laying in bed with your child, not cuddling them, but restraining them while they shrieked and screamed and fought to get their hands free so they could punch and hit and attack you, as you softly talked and sang to them, trying to refocus their attention and calm them down? No? I did. But you’d never know that to look at my daughter, happily playing an hour later, while I still struggled to suppress the anger and frustration I felt over the incident. That was before 7am this morning. And that is not an unusual way to start or end my days. But, she looks normal.

And that exasperation may have come through as I snapped at her as she dawdled to the truck, fiddling with her umbrella in the rain, this morning. “I’m wet, you’re wet, group starts in 10 minutes… LET’S GO!”

But all you would have seen is me snap at her. And I’m sure the words “What a bitch” would have flitted through your mind as you walk past and felt sorry for my daughter at having such a horrible mother. You wouldn’t have noticed the long sleeve shirt and jeans I was wearing to cover the bruises left from her lashing out yet again. Nor would you have noticed the cap I was wearing to hide the fact the hour spent restraining her had used up the spare moments I might have had to grab a shower or even actually run a brush through my hair.

And yet, there you would have stood in judgment because that mama bear instinct is to protect the child…not the parent.

That’s why I struggle when I read posts like this one that Janna at The Adventure of Motherhood wrote on the BlogHer site.

I don’t condone the actions of the parent.  Did she cross over that invisible line of what is acceptable in private, never mind public?  Yes, probably.

But consider this, if you will.  Every mother out there has had one of those days where they’re at their wits end with their children.  Where they just want to escape and can’t handle one more second of the whining/fighting/arguing/tantrums/crying/insert your child’s favorite button-pushing behavior here.  Now imagine having those days EVERY DAY FOR MONTHS ON END.  That can be what having a special need child is like sometimes.  At some point, if you don’t have the supports in place to help you deal with this sort of stuff (like I’m lucky that we do), you will lose it.  And sometimes that happens in public.

I’m not saying the child in this story Janna wrote about was special needs.  I don’t know.  I have no idea what issues the mother might be dealing with.  Because Janna’s instinct was to protect the child and say “I can do this better”.

Rather than approach the mom with an accusatory sentence of “I don’t think you should talk that way to your son,”  as most of us (myself included) instinctually would, why not go up and say “Is there anything I can do to help you?”

Find out what is going on that has brought them to the point that they have completely lost it in public.

And they may not want your help, and there may be nothing you can do.

But never think you can do it better until you know what’s really going on and have walked a mile in their shoes.

We are so quick to judge and hate each other.  Would it be so bad to hold out a hand instead and say “I understand.  Let me help”?

I have always had my nose stuck in a book.  There’s many a picture of me, from when I was a kid, sitting at a campground during summer holidays curled up with my latest novel, ignoring the beautiful outdoors.

And truth be told, I’m still the same way.  I love books.  It’s the one thing I don’t get nearly enough time for anymore. I would happily sit all day and read book after book after book if I could.  Yeah, I’m a loser and I’m OK with that.  I’m also one giant ball of useless knowledge, so, word of advice – don’t talk to me unless you want to be irritated by random facts.

So with in mind, here are the lovely ladies I think you should rush off and talk to:

• Aidan Donnelley Rowley has an interesting series of posts on whether men and women can just be friends (I say yes) and being friends with exes (I’m friends with many of mine). I seem to be in the minority with my opinions on both posts.  There is a great discussion on these two topics going on in the comments though, that’s well worth chiming in on.  She also just happens to have a book that’s coming out on Vista’s birthday.
• VampireSmitten and rewritingkel have teamed together to start an online book club called Paperback Readers.  So if you’re looking for some awesome ladies to chat with and an excuse to get 5 minutes to yourself (‘sorry, Mommy HAS to read this book’), go check it out.

Now it’s your turn. If you’d like to play along , then link up, and if you’re so inclined, grab a badge.

<a href="http://www.princessjenn.com/?cat=114" target="_blank"><img border="0" alt="Princess Jenn’s ‘Follow Friday’" src="http://i771.photobucket.com/albums/xx353/designsbyprincessjenn/Followfriday.jpg" /></a>