“Because You’re Worth It”~NOT

This is a bit of a vent and not sure who will see this, but here I go.  The Drake has worked for this company, played by the rules, THEIR RULES, and they might still screw him over. He’s been there for 30+ years, a real company man, working in their factory, amidst safety violations, ignorant, arrogant management, but he plodded along using his experience and being safety minded.  Everyone knows that when the Fire Department inspects the place, it’s a set up.  How do I know?  Because before the F.D. gets there, everyone is made to clean up the place…. yes, I know I’m not getting to the meat of it. I need to give background.  Think of management asking you to NOT following the rules, to NOT follow procedure just to get product made faster.  Like any other time you are cooking a good brew, you need to follow a recipe.  It’s no different for making shampoos, conditioner, and hair dye.  I don’t even want to tell you want goes into this stuff.

Remember when you conducted your own chemistry experiments?  Mine was bleach and ammonia.  Remember what happens?  Toxic, burning fumes, smoke, and the inevitable running out of the bathroom because your lungs were burning…. yeah, that was me… every time.   Fast forward and think that the factory workers know of this wonderful cause and effect magic.  Think of management who doesn’t have a clue.  Further, they want you to mix bleach and ammonia because it will cut out a few steps and the product will get made faster.  Forget about the fact that it will burn off the consumer’s hair and burn off skin from her scalp.  I can hear the little man giving sound warning and describing just what will happen if they do that; and I can also hear cartoonish management scoffing at those warnings and coming down hard on the person who will not follow their instructions.  Imagine the gestapo cutting down anyone who gets in the way….. LOL… yes, a bit colorful, and just a little bit dramatic, but this kind of stuff happens all the time.  You have young upstarts, just out of college who want to make their mark.  They will do anything to get noticed so that they can climb a little further up the corporate ladder.  I’ve heard of someone who was well liked by all, advanced, then people heard that he changed production numbers to make himself look good.  He was no longer a supervisor by that time, and was in higher management.  What were they going to do?  Nothing.  The guy who took over his position got canned because his numbers, the real numbers were significantly lower than the ones that were, shall we say, tweaked.  WTF?

So, getting back to the reason for my post.  The Drake’s employer announced that they were going to lay off about 20 FACTORY people, UNION people, BTW, the union sucks.  They decided to offer a buy out package to anyone within retirement range.  The Drake was also offered the package. We thought about it, and he decided to take it.  They just announced that 19 people took the package and so now they were not going to lay off anyone.  Yesterday, he comes home to say that the company made another announcement.  They are going to “temporarily” lay off everyone in the factory for a week.  According to the union contract they are supposed to give a good notice for “shutting down” the factory for whatever time. In fact, they used to annually shut down the factory in July for years. Now, all of a sudden they will “Lay off” people, except, of course, when people are laid off, they lose their benefits, um, what’s wrong with this picture?  ALSO, they could very well decide that when they bring back people, they will NOT rehire those who took the package. This has gotten me very scared. The Drake should at least call the union to see what they will say about it. At this point, personally, I don’t trust the company OR the union… but it’s his job, not mine.  I can’t go in there like a storm trooper!  I’ve blogged about various things that have been going on over there, but this one really hits home…. OUR home!

More venting might be necessary.

Bad Hair Day

Hey Everyone.  As a sort of introduction for adding more content to my Hair Page, I’ve decided to write more about what’s been going on with me and my hair that prompts such drastic action. Let me preface the following by saying that what comes next will sound like the ramblings of a vain person, and you’d be right!  I am pretty vain about my hair, so it goes without saying that the story of my hair loss will sound like a horror story…. because, to me, it is a horror story.  I write about it because I’m certain that there are more women out there going through the same thing, though, they’d be loath to admit it… or just plain don’t want to think about it, let alone talk about it….geez!

To give a little bit of a background, for most of my life my hair has been the key to my identity.  I somehow got it into my head that hair = femininity.  I still believe that my hair is the most feminine part I’ve got. Ha.. seems that in some areas, I’m a very blank and white kind of person… just think of the sweet blank and white cookies, the Drake’s favorite, BTW.  All my life I grew very long hair, down past my waist and I was very proud of it.  Then somewhere along the way, my friend next door got very long, thick hair and thicker than mine… and mine was pretty thick.  Soon, we were in a hair competition, unspoken, of course.  I think it was that competition that blocked out any thought of cutting it or going for any kind of style.  My own hair credentials are that it was long, shiny (hers was not) and I had a lot of it, which made it pretty thick.  The hair shaft was not course, but fine; which gave it a really nice shine.  It has a slight wave to it, which allows me to also have wavy hair.  I am lucky enough to have hair that can be set into a style and it will actually stay.  The great volume of it means that with so much hair, it can be still classified as thick even though the hair shaft is fine.  I wore my glorious mane down most of the time, but I was constantly nagged by my mom about it being messy all the time… HA… Now this so called “messy-ness” is called the casual look. When I was a teenager, I had no idea as to how I could style it, or even the proper way to maintain it other than brushing.  My mother was totally unapproachable as her very presence was a threat to keeping it long.  I never asked her for advice because I didn’t want to draw attention to my hair… and her making me cut it.  Her two aunts were beauticians and ultimately, during the summer between the 8th grade and the 9th, she dragged me kicking and screaming into the backyard and one of my aunts mutilated my head by chopping my hair into three distinct sections.  I was devastatingly traumatized and spent the next several years just trying to grow it out.  It took four to five years to get it back to where it was before the “incident”.  Such a waste of time.  My stupid mother did not realize that she was cutting away my security blanket… or maybe she DID know that and did it as some sort of act of parenting.  Anyway, she ruined me for high school because I spent my time striving to blend into the woodwork of a school made of cement blocks.  I digress…….

So, I pretty much kept my hair long after that with the exception of a few years in the 80’s when perms became popular.  I loved how my girlfriend’s hair looked and decided to hack off my hair AND perm it at the same time…. a pretty drastic change for someone who clung to her hair/security blanket.  It just goes to show you what can be achieved IF you really want it.  I loved Stevie Nicks.  Remember her hair?  I got that look.  I got the longest layered style possible and had it permed into Stevie.  I loved every minute of that phase!  After a few years, I stopped perming and found out that, with the particular characteristics of my hair, I didn’t need to perm to get the look.  All I had to do was wash my hair and let it dry naturally… oh yes, into the “messy” look….. WTF?

Okay… so I stopped spending money to perm my hair and started spending $$ to color it.  I loved the reds and went for the lightest auburn, even though I had dark brown coloring.  I did blonde a couple of times, but I never saw what was so great about it.  Now, RED!  That is something!  There was one summer that L’Oreal came out with really bright, intense colors that were supposed to be temporary.  The red one came out fire engine red, literally; and I loved it!  It pays to have a DH working at L’Oreal.  I get to try out anything I want for half price, which is great when you have really long hair and need 3-4 boxes of the stuff.  Last summer, however, they discontinued it in their store and I scooped up the last of what I could find.  Copper Craze.  Now the reason the colors looked so intense on me is because a lot of my hair in the front is gray, so color on top of white, makes it exceptionally bright.  Copper Craze turned out to be bright ORANGE.  I wasn not very happy with that, but it did grow on me and I ended up loving it.  As it got washed out, it turned a nice Honey Blonde and I got so many compliments about that phase.  People thought I colored and highlighted my hair blonde…. brrrr!  To this day, I still have blonde-ish streaks that are growing out.

Enough background, don’t you think?  Onward….  In my thirties, my hair stopped growing.  I could not get it below my shoulders.  When I got pregnant with my son, it started growing, along with my nails.  It grew so fast and so unexpectedly, that I started treating it like long hair and took care of it nice.  Several months ago, it went through a shedding phase, but it I will call it hair loss.  I call it that because literally tons of it came out every time I showered.  Usually, we lose 50 or so strands of hair a day.  That is normal.  Visually, I know what that looks like; so when clumps of it started to come out in the shower, I panicked.  Now, I have a thing that I do when I wash my hair.  As it’s washed, and especially during conditioning, it comes out into my hands and I throw the clump onto the shower wall to prevent it from getting into the drain.  Oh, and there is also a small basket in the drain to catch everything.  Before, I cleaned out the basket after my shower…. NOW, I am cleaning my hair outta there two and three times.  The amount of hair that is hitting the wall is at least double if not more of the volume.  Pretty freaking scary.  This has been happening for a long and the only thing that is saving me is the volume of hair that I started out with because if I didn’t have really, really thick hair to start with, I be freaking bald right now.  My friends don’t really understand because they don’t see a difference, but I can feel the difference.  I can also see my scalp and almost count the follicles.  I can SEE the individual strands, whereas before, I could not…. so I know what’s going on.  Maybe it looks okay now, but if the shedding doesn’t stop, I’ll be bald soon.

Still, not the end of the world, right?  Of course, and I DO know that.  So now, I will have a bald head and a face and neck full of manly hair that needs to be shaved just about every other day, if I cared about it.  Funny, I don’t really feel weird about having that facial hair, which is because I’ve had it all my life… UGH another thing to contend with, but I do it every day.  No bid deal, so why is my head hair such a traumatic experience?  Because I’m vain about it.  Because I have a certain perception of it… and that is how beautiful it looks when I fix it up nice… and how I cannot now create beautiful, soft updo’s that project my femininity because they fall flat with no hair inside to puff it out.  I wanted to become the mature Storm… you know, from the X-Men.  All her power is in her hair, you know.  HA…. I KNOW.  That might not happen now because I’ll be bald before I go completely gray.  I’m sad that my grays are falling out, too…. I love my grays!

So, with all this said.  My next posting will get more into hair loss and various causes… and how we can be proactive with prevention of hair loss.  I’m a firm believer in having as much understanding as possible in everything I experience.  Understanding is the key to acceptance.  It’s the key to living, in general.  That is my belief.  If I can’t get my hair back, I want to understand why.  I want to know that I’ve done all that I can do to prevent it; and if I still cannot get it back, my understanding of the situation will allow me to accept where I’m at and know that it’s out of my control.

oh well, there’s always wigs.

My Hair Page….

I will be updating my hair page soon (you may have noticed it’s tab at the top of this page) to take on the issues of major hair loss.  It will be a work in progress and I’ll be adding content into the main blog post area.  Recently, for whatever reason, I’ve been experiencing major shedding, hair loss, whatever you want to call it.  I think it’s something that is terribly traumatic for women since a lot, if not all of their identity and/or femininity is connected to their hair.  This is my belief, but really, I do acknowledge that this could not possibly be true for everyone, but I do believe there are a lot of women out there affected by it.

Please stay tuned for more on my own experiences and what I’ve been doing about it and how I am feeling… yada yada yada.

Alas, I am finally showing my age!  Well you know, I cannot let this be the end of the world for me, so I feel the urge to work through it and, most importantly for me and possibly others, to WRITE about it.  Thanks for your patience.  I know I’m not such a dedicated writer recently, but I find that I write when I feel strongly about something… and I can feel it building up….. ?

The One Million Dollar Question

I know. I’m not blogging as much as I should, but I’ve been honing my fiber skills! Still, something happened yesterday that I simply MUST document.

Ever since Gabriel was born, I envisioned myself as being one of those moms who will find a way to discuss anything with her male child, regardless of gender. I even wrote a song and book about the WHY questions of the very young. After almost four whole years, Gabriel finally asked his mommie a direct, engaging question. It was so totally unexpected and so totally outrageous.  You be the judge:

Last night I gave him a bath; and because our apartment is on the cool side, afterwards we usually spend time on his bed to  snuggle to keep him warm while he’s still wet. He gets wrapped up in a huge towel and I’ll dry his hair with the end of it. Last night I unwrapped him for the ritual of slathering shea butter all over him, and I caught him playing with his penis. Well.  This was not the first I saw him doing this, AND it’s very normal behavior for this age… I guess for any age. The thing is that this mommie has never handled this situation as a mommie.  I’ve heard stories from his teachers about how the boys are going at it during nap time! I’ve been told about how those little beds actually slide across the room! Some teachers were freaking out, so the school had to create a workshop for them to help them understand and handle it better.  Again, very normal and they treat it as such.  

Even though it’s normal, however, I still need to teach Gabe that he should not do this in public… OOOH, going back a few months, he went through a phase of pulling down his pants to play with his little willy.  It unfolded so suddenly that I could not think about how to handle it as I didn’t want to traumatize the kid with my ineptness as a toddler interpreter.  To make things worse, he started this behavior exactly on the morning of a cookie decorating party that had about 12 other kids attending.   My first reaction as to be mortified when, after all the talking I did before we got there NOT to do that, he did.   I have since figured out that he was doing this when he was bored.  At the party, there came a point when all the other kids went downstairs and he was left upstairs with just the mommies.  Even though I had my eyes on him 99% of the time, it was during that 1% he decided to put his hands in his pants.  How I found out was that I had noticed someone looking in his direction with a funny face.  I looked over and there he was.  Thank goodness he was basically alone, but standing in the middle of the room being pretty obvious about the whole thing.  I am so grateful for those mommies who have more than just a few years of mommie seniority on me.  They really helped me get my head back and gave advice on how I should be handling it.  However, you know that things like this do not go away overnight, so that Monday afternoon, I was advised by the school that he had exposed himself in front of all the kids… which is not normally a bad thing, but they are more concerned about the other kids’ parents finding out, especially new parents and those of the girls, because sometimes they don’t understand that it’s pretty innocent.  The teachers also gave advice on how to handle this.  

I’d say that the most important thing is to keep calm and to not project negativity about the actual penis or that playing with it is taboo.  Again, let me say right here that this is my own opinion and the point of this is not to criticize any one else’s parenting.  For myself, I want my child to be comfortable with his body and that means I will not teach him that touching his penis, or any other part of his body, is wrong.  Now, getting back to the landmark question I was asked just yesterday.  Oh, I should say that Gabe had stopped pulling down his pants in front of me and I had not gotten any reports, of him doing the same, from school,. 

Getting back to last night.  I grabbed this opportunity to talk more about the need to keep private and decided to tell Gabe not to play with his penis.  I went on to say that he should not let other people see his penis because it was a “private part”, HIS private part.  For a little while he was silent, then he looked right at me and asked, “Mommie, what’s wrong with my penis?”  Wow, that came on so suddenly that all I could do was to just sit there, taking it in for a bit.  I said, “Gabe, there is nothing wrong with your penis.  Your penis is perfectly fine, there is nothing wrong with it.  It’s just that your penis should be private and it’s bad manners to let other people see it.”  Oh God, I am hoping that was okay to say.  There is so much more that needs to be said on this subject, for his protection, about perverts, so heavy; but I still have no idea how to convey all this additional stuff, so kept silent, for now.  I don’t remember using the word “wrong” when I first told him not to touch it, but I honestly don’t remember word for word, but do remember word for word, my response… how weird that is.  From the whole experience?  I’m walking on eggs wondering if I handled that okay… though I think I did.  I had no idea he had this on his mind, if he did prior to this interaction.

SIGH… so that is the story of the million dollar question… not a “Why” question, but it’s plenty for now.  REALLY.  I am still so looking forward to Gabe asking more questions.  I will go into a bit of history here.  When I was growing up, my parents were not open, and definitely did not project approachability. There was affection, NO communication other than various dictates, rulings and being disciplined.  As we got older, I think my mother missed being close with us, but really, she did nothing earlier in our lives to welcome us into “her” world.  I’ve vowed that will not be the case with my son.  Yes, I’m an older mommie, but I think it’s just the right time for me to become a mother.  I never could have done this if I was younger.  I am more mature and more developed, myself, which makes me better mom material.

 

 

Somehow I caught this look.... gives me the shivers

Dragonmommie and Her Drake

Yep, this is us at a wedding this past March.  One of two times in 3 years that we left our baby overnight someplace else.  We’re proud that he did really well.

Update: I’m Just a Lamb….

No, not really!  I just wanted to take the time to write a little update on one of my recent posts, “I’m on the Lam”.    First part:

Well, today I’m officially a woman who is basking in the sweet sunshine of freedom….. this week I paid my bail of $40.00.  The Drake came in with some overtime and gave me a bunch of money, with part of it to go to pay the man.  I was still a little annoyed that day and thought that I would file a complaint about the meter-maid who would not come over to the meter to check out my claim of it being disabled.  I was there early, which btw, they only give a window of 1/2 hour, 9:00am-9:30am for people to come in if they just want to pay the bail.  You have to make an appointment for them to see you if you want to make another court date.  At the last minute when I got to the window, I felt a calm… but I still wanted to complain, just this time, formally.  Oddly, I didn’t feel any animosity towards the clerk who was reading a book well after 9am.  She asked me if I wanted another court date and I said no, just want to pay the bail because I felt that I would go in there predisposed for a failure since I had already missed a court date.  In that case, I might have to pay more, and well, $40.00, while pretty cheap as things go, is still a liability for us.  She gave me a form to sign that basically said that I waive my right to a court appearance…. AND admission of guilt.  That really got me.  I told her that I wanted to lodge a complaint against the meter-maid, but was told that signing the form was an admission of guilt… duh!   So, I had to just let that one go…. but growled all through the signing of my name.

So, there you have it.  I left there with my freedom…… and a receipt.

Number Two.  The famous CLASH OF THE CHRISTMAS PARTIES.   Okay, so I missed two fun parties this year and there might still be a faint twinge lurking inside… but that’s okay.   On Tuesday I got up ready to be into the Rosarian party and I was.  A little suspense for the day included that I could not get into the parish hall to set up everything the day before because the custodian was in the hospital with an ear infection.  Sound familiar?   Because I could not get into our closet to check out our supplies, I had to go and buy coffee and table cloths.  As it turned out, we had plenty.  To be honest, I never saw them there before and so, I come up short on the necessity of knowing my inventory.  I had seen one or two, but didn’t know if we had for all six round tables and other tables for the sides… so I guess I donated them.  So, Tuesday morning, the day of the event, I could not even get into the parish hall at the time the receptionist said that I could get in there.  Finally got in a good 2.5 hours after… wasted time… The good side is that I had plenty of help and took the prerogative of leaving early (presidents can do that) so that I could cook a big thing of sausage and peppers before having to pick up Gabe at school at three, then come home and get ready, myself.  Please understand, as an Italian, I never made this dish… or not in recent memory.  I remember that my mom used to boil the links of sweet sausage first, then brown them after all the water evaporated.  That took a long time, so I am thinking I’ve got plenty of hours by the stove for 4 pounds of the stuff!  Well, a lightning bolt hit me and I got the idea to cut up the links, raw, then saute/brown them in a deep stock pot I have (to keep the splatters inside).  While I value that doing it this way knocked off a lot of time, cutting up raw meat in an intestinal casing was not fun… lots of ground up meat being forced out of the casings and I ended up making little meat balls of the stuff that totally came out…. but not bad.  Everyone loved it and I got to take about one fourth of what I made home… not bad.  Lots of great recipes that night.  Got a break on clean up, too. We ended later than scheduled and the pastor was practically chasing us out.  I did have to hand over my key to the closet to the former president… but that’s not a problem.

Oh, what was a problem is the fact that I did feel like a puppet that night.  I am slowly getting the feeling that I’m just another figure head for this organization.  That’s not a good feeling… though strangely, I don’t mind it.  I guess I’m not really a leader.  I’m more of a team player and more likes to be told what to do, than me telling others what to do.  Maybe that will change as I get more familiar and comfortable in this role, but for now, I’m good.  Well, twice that night the former president told me to do some things that had no purpose and probably showed me to be just a puppet.  That’s what I don’t like.  First, she wanted me to just follow two other people who were selling tickets, a mother and son team (in everything) and all I was doing was following them around.  I was not told even for what purpose.  Then, when they handed out the bonus checks to the pastor and office staff, I was told to stand there and I did, while the treasurer handed out the checks with little comments.  I felt like a jerk.  Sigh… oh well, at least I don’t have to worry about this group again until March.

Oh, forgot that soon I’ll be visiting three of our housebound members to gift them with shawls and cards that were signed by everyone.  See, this is the part that I like and excel in.

I’m on the Lam…..

That’s right.  I’m officially a fugitive from the law in Elizabeth, NJ.

How can this be so?  What happened, you ask?  Well, I made the mistake of parking in a spot with a meter that was stuffed with pennies on Elizabeth Ave.  I honestly never thought it would be a wrong thing to do, given it’s so hard to find parking on the street in Elizabeth.  The traffic is so horrendous that when I saw this spot in front of me, I grabbed it, with quarter in hand, only to find out that the meter would not work because there were pennies in it, all the way through.  I could tell that because there are windows on the front, showing it.  I honestly did not want to move my car, but really didn’t think it was wrong to stay there.

So, after shopping in the Salvation Army, I crossed the street to my car and was going to leave, but noticed a Hispanic store I never went into because I’d always be driving by it…. so decided to go in to check it out.  I quickly walked around the place and decided to pick up some special sugar.  There was only one person in the store, so it did not take me long to get out… only to find the meter maid getting back into her vehicle after leaving me a little present.  I ran after her, yelling and she finally stopped so that I could ask her why she gave me a ticket.  I told her that I could not put money in the meter because of the pennies being stuck in there.  Well, she would not get out of her scooter and told me that I’d have to fight it in court.   If she would have just gotten out of her scooter to see, but NO!   The only thing I could do was go back and take pictures with my cell phone, an LG Chocolate… which really does not take the greatest pictures, but I took two.

So now, I go to pick up my son from school and had the idea to protest the ticket.  While in the car, safely parked at the school, I called.  I was told that the ticket was not on file and that I should wait a week and call on Friday.    So I waited…. Called again on Friday and it still was not on file.  Called again on Monday and it still was not on file… so now I get the idea to ask  who I should talk to, to report a broken meter.  I get on the line with the Director of Traffic Control… ooh, not sure if that is her department… but the place you actually interact with when you get a parking ticket.  She asked me why I waited so long to report a broken meter; and she actually asked my why I still parked in a spot with a broken meter…. DUH…. maybe because there were no other spots?  Well to be truthful, I was in a rush and didn’t realize (though I should have) that there was a public parking lot right there…. will be the thorn in my side forever.  Maybe it’s just that when you get a break like that, you want to take it and revel in the fact that you caught a break…. I mean, I DID have the quarter right in my hand, ready to pay!  Ugh!  Okay, so she tells me that she will issue someone out right away to check it out; and that I should wait for a letter in the mail.  She also told me that I should bring in the ticket so that they could make a copy for their records.  I did that on the next day… it was pretty quick as I do try to be a good citizen of this city.

Okay, so after waiting, I received a notice that there was nothing wrong with the meter… those dolts!   I have pictures~well to make a long story short, I was to report to court, but got the dates mixed up.  I had received multiple notices about different aspects of this ticket and I thought my court appearance was Dec. 17th, but it was really Dec. 8th.  Yeah, that was totally my error.  So, I figured that I just had to pay the ticket, in the amount of $24.00…. what was I thinking?  Next thing I know, I get this notice in the mail that there is a warrant out for my arrest!  This was Saturday…. I’ve been trying to call them all morning to say that I’d like to come to give myself up, but I don’t have the cash to pay my BAIL of $40.00.  I want to see if they take credit cards…. I don’t have my own job, so I have to wait to get it from DH which will probably mean Thursday – Friday…. I don’t want to walk into that police station just to have them lock me up until I can put up the BAIL… This has snowballed into a big mess.  Update:  As of 10.36am, I’ve called that court five times and get their “we’re really interested in your call, but please call back at a later time…” HEY…. I have to pick up my three year old from school later!  The last thing I need is for him to be left at school while his mom sits in jail… because it’s so damn hard for her to reach the hubby at work, and who knows when/if  he’ll even get the message!!!!!

So on top of this, I am organizing our Rosary Society’s Christmas party… but pretty well disappointed that my knitting circle’s party is on the same night (tomorrow).  I’ll miss them so much… yet I feel pretty much like the throw away part of a TV dinner.  To add salt to the injury, circumstances dictated that, at the last minute, I could not attend another crochet meeting/party.  The night before, DH unceremoniously informed me that he had to work on that day…. gah!!!!  Two perfect examples when they say that “life will go on”… and a merry time will be had by all…. but just without me.  I’m at the point where I don’t even want to hear the details of the goings on of any of these parties because I don’t want to bust out crying… I’m just too DAMN emotional!  I wanted to send them a lump of coal as a gag gift for their gift exchange but couldn’t because I don’t have the cash.  I should be grateful that God is fixing it so that my meaness won’t affect anyone other than me.   I attempted to rationalize it all by believing that God is just fixing it so I’m not put into the position of shelling out money that I don’t have for the gift exchange which is to be $15.00 (and $5.00 for the first party)…. yet, as president of the Rosary Society, and organizing this party, I’ll be “donating” table clothes and coffee stuff, which will definitely go over that $20.00….. so what gives, God ?   Just wish I knew.

Name Change……

Hey Everyone…

I want to take this time to announce I am changing the name of my blog from ~Dragon’s Yen~ to just plain old DragonMommie.   I’ve been thinking about it a lot and then, tonight… POP…. took the plunge.  I hope this is not too much of an inconvenience to anyone.

Thanks!

DragonMommie

Out of the Mouths of Babes

So, things have been mentally and emotionally crazy around here lately.  I am starting to understand some of the powerlessness that goes along with being a mommie.  Needless to say, Little Drake has some issues and I am wracking my brain trying to figure out how to just identity what they are.  So many factors are playing at once and they are not playing very nice.

He’s got hearing loss.  Don’t remember if it’s in one ear or both.  A month ago, I took him to his pediatrician and he found an “impaction”…. meaning he has some wax in there.  A week or so later, I brought him to a specialist to be examined and also to take out the wax.  We go to the specialist and he took wax out of both of his ears, but really, there was not that much there and the doctor said he didn’t think the wax was the cause for the hearing loss.  He also found “subtle” fluid in there and said that the major question was “how chronic” is it.  In other words, he didn’t know how long the fluid was there.  He wanted to wait a month, without medication, to see if it went away by itself.  I didn’t know any better and just went along with the flow.  We just had a follow up visit yesterday and it seems that not only is the fluid still there, but now there’s more and on top of that, it’s infected.  Well, I wanted to scream.  My first thought was, “Hey, if you saw it a month ago and it was not infected, then by what I saw today, that fluid must not have been there very long if it actually can get infected”.  Am I making myself clear?  I know that I’m not a doctor, with medical training, but am I so far off the mark?  It just seems to me that this dr. let my son go home without medication knowing full well that it was possible the he’d come back a month later with an infection.

This is what is making me mad… because now, not only does he need antibiotics, which I try not to give him, but he also needs to take some type of steroid.  My baby being placed on a DRUG… albeit only for two weeks, but the side effects of this helpful drug is “some <?>” hyper aggression.  Exactly what does “some” mean in this case?   I now know how parents feel when there is something really wrong with their babies.  I realize that this is small potatoes, but now my little man will change and not be himself for two weeks…

Ugh… I’m sitting here in a turmoil of thoughts and emotions.  LD has been behaving erratically in school.  We have found out that he also cannot communicate very well.  They say that he does try, but is not where he should be.  He is also hitting his classmates and I’ve heard the teachers, too.  I am beside myself wondering what is causing this behavior.  I am wondering if I’ve not done as much as I could do to teach him the right behavior.  His teacher tells me that she doesn’t think he is being malicious; but that maybe he just doesn’t “know” what is right and wrong.  He often laughs while he is being aggressive.  Again, getting back to trying to identify what exactly is causing this behavior… I wish I knew.  His teacher thinks he cannot process audio directions; which could be caused by the hearing loss, but with the hearing issue still a question, I sit here still in the dark.

The other day he whacked a cactus rain stick on the floor and it cracked open, with all the gravelly bits flying all over the floor.  I was mortified that Gabe broke school property… oh and he also scribbled on the table with a magic marker…. I know, kid stuff… but still.  I want to replace it, but the teachers wanted to see if they could fix it first… I have to check back with them.  He teacher was so good with him… I am the one who failed miserably that day.  All I could do was ask him why he did that… even after we found out that kids his age do NOT understand the concept of “why” and “how”…. so how do you get information from them?  Creativity, that’s how… I’m not good at this.  His teacher was the best. Miss. Tracey.  She simply started to sweep everything up (something I could’ve done) and Gabe was helping her… so nice…. dumb mommie that I am.  A great teaching opportunity steamrolled over by my own embarrassment.

The school wants me to get him to a pediatric neurologist.  The Ear Guy says that going up that avenue at this time might not be necessary, but he’s leaving it to me to decide.  I figure that it can’t hurt at this point.  The more information we can get, the better.  I’m still just so mad at this Ear Guy!  I feel that we wasted a month’s time playing the waiting game with the health and well being of my baby’s hearing.  Did you know that while taking this steroid, Gabe’s immune system is weakened?  He’ll be more prone to infections and sickness.  The label even says to keep him away from people with contagious illness…. oh, GREAT… he only attends public school full time…. oh yeah, he’ll be safe there!

I fret that I was too hard on Gabe for stuff that he could not help.  It seems that I am always jerking him back to reality with, “Pay attention!”  I have to seriously examine how I am talking to this kid.  How much of this due to hearing loss and how much to him just tuning me out… I KNOW he does that!  All I can think about is how apprehensive I am to wash his hair, always worrying about water getting in his ears and causing an infection!  Seriously, if I wash his hair once a week, it’s a lot.  The doctor told me that water getting in his ears from the outside is not the same as the water, on the other side of his ear drum, causing the infection… so there you have it… WASH YOUR KID’S HAIR!

Gotta run… I really can’t think that much anyway.

Hippies Creations

This was my tree last year.

I name this post for the subject of my post. Her name is Petra and has a son, Lennon, who is loveable, kind, gentle, loving, and just the best son ever…. except when his ammonia levels skyrocket. When this happens, he becomes very aggressive, disoriented, incoherent and has been described as appearing to be a bit crazy. In other words, he becomes a totally different child. Normal ammonia levels are 50-60. I do believe I read that Lennon’s had gotten as high as in the 300’s. Lennon is of preschool age. He has already had two liver transplants. Lennon has Urea Cycle Disorder.  Please check out the link for this genetic disease.  Can you imagine this happening to your child? I am sitting here doing just that. I cannot imagine myself living through, and witnessing what my friend has witnessed happening to her son. All I can think of is that I have a hard time when my preschooler gets a cut, let alone going through life saving surgery and the gory details that go along with it… just to NOT get graphic about it. Just to think of their little perfect bodies enduring what seems impossible… becomes a reality. It’s a hard reality for mothers to come to grips with; and at the same time, no one should have to experience.

I’m not writing Petra’s whole story here, but if you’re interested, you can find it here. The reason for my writing is that I want to get her story out. She is not asking for donations; but as it happens, she does have an Etsy shop, HERE. She does wonderful work with beads and pyrography, or, wood burning.

I don’t make it a practice to advertise for other people, but I was moved to, today. I figure, “Hey, it’s the Holiday season and maybe someone is out there shopping around for gifts.” A part of me felt powerless until I thought of writing about her. After being paired with Petra in a beading swap, we corresponded ourselves into a friendship that has survived a few long spells of not corresponding. She made me a beautiful bracelet that rests so pretty on my wrist. It doesn’t happen often, that I will just love something that wasn’t made by me. She seems to know what I like.