lawmummy

So, I’ll bet you’re looking at the last post and seeing that a number of days have passed and have somehow imagined me on a tropical island somewhere enjoying my anniversary.  Or maybe that was just my own imaginings.  Either way, couldn’t be further from the truth.

I am, as I type, up to my eyeballs in boogers, fake fur and Halloween candy.  Oh yeah, I’m still working on the costumes (Katie’s, however, was finished in time for her Halloween parade at school, photos to follow later) and trying to coordinate our Halloween potluck for tonight, all while fending off various germs that have invaded the bodies of my children.  Rather than celebrating with champagne and strawberries, I was meting out quantities of Zithromax, Dimetapp, Amoxicillin and some other prescription cough medicine that I can’t remember the name of.  It’s stinky and it stains clothing, that’s all I have.

At any rate, that’s where I’ve been.  When I come up for some snot free air, I’ll post pictures of Halloween, talk about my friend’s divorce (no, I don’t know Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillippe, I’ve got my own problems) and otherwise dish.  Oh, and I have to post my Green Thumb Sunday picture and do my top ten Monday…  Jeez, I’m tired just thinking about it.

Enjoy your Halloween!

It’s my first Green Thumb Sunday!  And of course, I forgot to post on Sunday.  So this is a retroactive post.  Shh, don’t tell anyone.

This photo is of my lovely Golden Lights azaleas.  They look like daylilies, which I love, but last so much longer!

You can see more flowers and plants from my garden every Sunday.

To find out how to join the fun, click here.

Today is my anniversary.  It’s been 2,190 days since Chris and I said "I will" at New Hanover Lutheran Church in Gilbertsville, PA - since he snickered when the minister surprised us by adding "with God’s help" at the end.  And I giggled.  And then I couldn’t stop. 

All goofiness aside, it really doesn’t feel like that much time has passed.  And all of the stuff that I wrote last year still rings true. 

No matter how much we bicker, how much we step on each other’s toes, he’s still the one for me.  He is, quite simply, my very best friend.

Check this out…  Click on any button to start, then click on the mouse to change the color of the paint.  A great way to spend a few minutes!

http://www.jacksonpollock.org/

I forgot to add that Andrea Kelly had yet another child in October of this year, three months after her daughter, Danieal, died. And all this time she claimed to be overwhelmed. Apparently finding men to sleep with took up a lot of her time.

Sometimes news stories hit you full on.  And this week, I cannot seem to get the death of Danieal Kelly out of my mind.

Danieal Kelly died in Philadelphia at the age of 14.  She weighed just 46 pounds, which is exactly twice the weight of my two year old, my very tiny two year old.  According to the CDC chart, the healthy weight of a 14 year old is 110 pounds.

When she died, during a heat wave in Philadelphia, she was dehydrated.  She also had open wounds with maggots in her body.  Yes, maggots.

Take a deep breath and try to make sense of that for a minute, even though it’s nearly impossible.  Think of your child, or a child that you know.  Imagine that they weigh less than 50% of their appropriate weight.  And now imagine them crying out for something to drink during a heat wave, and being ignored.  Now imagine bed sores, the result of being ignored, bed sores that became infected with maggots.  Tiny little bugs crawling all over and inside the body of a 14 year old girl.

And now ask yourself, who in the hell would let that happen?

There’s a whole host of candidates.  You can blame the social worker assigned to the case who apparently never really took the time to do his job properly.  You can blame Philadelphia’s DHS who received at least five complaints about that household and dismissed each complaint.  You can blame former DHS Commissioner Cheryl Ransom-Garner who was forced to resign her position and her deputy, John McGee, who was fired.  These two individuals, who were compensated well, probably never had a moment where they felt as helpless as Danieal must have felt.  They probably sat in their comfortable offices, with water freely available, without the horrible feeling that nobody cared about them.  They were, however, apparently content to sit in those offices and not care about Danieal.  How dare they assume such an important job with this City that I love, this job of making sure that the littlest among us that don’t always have a voice are heard, are taken care of, are given a chance, and yet these folks chose to sit on their asses and let this happen.  How dare they.  Now that they are gone, I am sure that they are sitting in their comfortable homes wondering how this could have happened to them, why their jobs are gone.  Here’s something to consider, Ms. Ransom-Garner and Mr. McGee:  why is Danieal Kelly dead?  Why did you let that happen?  And why did you let twenty other children in similar circumstances die under your watch?

Lest you forget in your oh so busy lives about those children, let me remind you.  According to the Inquirer, one and a half year old Alayiah Turman was beaten to death.  Three month old Marrieon Currie,
was doused in hot water, thrown down stairs, and beaten with a
mop handle.  Two year old Bryanna Redmond died from a punch that split her spine.  And let’s not forget Porchia Bennett, who I posted about almost one year ago - she would have been the same age as my Katie had she lived.  She would have likely started school this year, too.  But she didn’t because, after a short life filled with abuse, she was brutally killed.  And yes, too, it was on your watch, Ms. Ransom-Garner.  In this City, children have died because you didn’t do your job properly.

But it would be the wrong to push all of the blame onto an inept city agency.  At the end of the day, while the city agency failed those children, it didn’t fail them half as much as their families did.  In most of these cases, the children were killed by the parent or by a boyfriend/friend of the parent.

And that’s what happened to Danieal Kelly.  Her own mother, Andrea Kelly, let her die.

Of course, Danieal’s mother is terribly distraught.  She claims that it really is the City’s fault, and yes, that means her lawyer is considering a lawsuit against the City for basically, failing to protect her children from herself.  Such bullshit. 

I hope every juror in this town understands what this woman is asking.  She wants to be nicely compensated for her own failure to be a parent.  Please don’t let that happen.  Please send a message that she had a responsibility to be the mother.  She needed to take care of her daughter.  She needed to ask for help if she was, as she claimed, overwhelmed.  She did not.  She chose, yes chose, to let her daughter die.  That is despicable and for that, she should not be compensated, she should be jailed.

She has many other children.  After Danieal’s death, the City removed her eight other children living in her home.  One of them had previously been reported to DHS for smelling bad and having an eye injury.  Clearly that didn’t spur Ms. Kelly into action.  She continued to neglect her children.

Her lawyer, Vincent J. Giusini, claims that she was just too overwhelmed taking care of all of her children.  Interesting that she is too overwhelmed to contact DHS to save her children but has the presence of mind to call a lawyer to save her ass.

Overwhelmed?  Well, Ms. Kelly, here’s a novel idea:  don’t have so many fucking kids! 

No, I’m not suggesting that there’s a magic number of kids that is appropriate.  Three is fine for me.  My mother had three.  My grandmother had eight, one of whom was also disabled.  My grandmother worked her ass off to raise those children.  She was poor, she did not have help, and yet, she never left them in a room to waste away with maggots in open wounds.

I am, quite frankly, sick of the excuses.  I don’t care about being PC.  I don’t care if it sounds harsh.  If you can’t fucking take care of your kids, don’t have them.  And don’t give me that I’m poor/ignorant/overwhelmed shit.  Lots of women in difficult circumstances have children every day - and they don’t all let their children die.

This is probably one of the most venomous posts that I have ever written.  I hope that it doesn’t turn anyone off.  But if it does, apologies all around if it’s off-putting, but not for saying what I did.  I felt that it had to be said.

How dare we live in a country, one of the wealthiest countries in the world, where we allow this to happen.

We should all be ashamed.

I just saw an ad for the new Mister Rogers on PBS and it bothers me.  Some things shouldn’t change.

And yes, I know that Fred Rogers has been dead for a few years now.  I just didn’t realize they had a new host.  I guess I thought the show would go with him…

So, I figured there had to be an explanation for the crankiness of both Charlie and Amy beyond the idea that they’re just destined to be that way…  And so, at 9am I was making appointments for each of them to see the pediatrician.

The verdict?  Amy had both an ear infection and a sinus infection (poor thing).  She has a terrible runny nose, foul smelling diarrhea (no, it’s not normally pleasant smelling but I wanted to differentiate it because it was really, really bad) and a cough that left her sounding like Louis Armstrong.  Charlie had fluid in his ear, and it was pink.  Likewise, congestion and a cough.

Meds were prescribed, though we held off on yet another antiobiotic with Charlie.  About a month ago, he went through a round of three antiobiotics for two ear infections.  Egads, and this with a breastfed baby!  Mom and my pediatrician remind me that this is also what happens with a third child.  Now I really feel sorry for my mom who was the 7th of 8 children - it’s a wonder that she made it!

Charlie is sleeping better already (thank goodness) with a little bit of decongestant.  Hopefully, I will be able to sleep more than an hour or so in a row tonight…

Katie has, somewhere along the line, become quite the little devil.

And tonight, she was very lucky to escape into her bedroom without finding herself grounded for the rest of her life…

You see, Amy’s duck went missing (I know, I know).  It was a trauma among traumas.  Chris was at a dinner and I had all three children.  Charlie is sick (a cold).  Amy is sick (a sinus infection).  I am tired.  And Katie?  In a mood.

Katie beseeched me to look for duck.  Amy was crying.  There was screaming.

I looked.  And looked.  And looked.

I looked some more.

Amy was still crying.

And then it dawned on me.

"Katie,"  I said.  "Do you have duck?"

Cute little smile.

"Nooo," she answered.

I pull up her covers from under her as she was lying on her bed.  And there was duck.

"Yes, Katie, you did have duck.  That’s not very nice at all.  Why did you take duck?"

"But mom, I didn’t take duck.  Somebody else must have put duck there."

Cute little smile.

Cue lights out.

With a tip o’ the hat to Amy at Binkytown, here’s what I would do…

1. You can flip a switch that will wipe any celebrity out of existence. Which one will it be?

Paris Hilton.  She’s famous just for being famous.  She appears to have little to no brains and even less in the way of empathy.  She contributes her celebrity to nothing in the way of an important cause.  She’s way too skinny and fake.  Shudder.  And I don’t want my daughters to know of her existence.  Or my son for that matter.

2. No strings attached you have the opportunity to sleep with the celebrity of your choice. Who do you pick?

Um, gosh, would it be mean to say Tim McGraw?  I mean, Faith Hill seems so nice and all. 

Or my other celebrity crush, Luke Wilson.

3. Now that you’ve slept with
the celebrity of your choice, you seem to be having an excellent day
because you just came across a hundred-dollar bill on the sidewalk.
Holy shit, a hundred bucks! How are you gonna spend it?

A year of TiVo.  We are the only family in the world without it.

4. You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go?

St. Petersburg, Russia.  It’s October, if I wait any longer, it will be too cold.

5. Upon arrival to
the aforementioned location, you get off the plane and discover another
hundred-dollar bill. Shit! Now that you are in the new location, what
are you gonna do?

$100?  Russia?  Why, vodka, of course!  Some expensive, fancy vodka that I wouldn’t normally get.

6. You accidentally eat
some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is
that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What’s it
gonna be?

Supersonic speed, so that I can accomplish everything that’s going on in my head - and still pick Katie up from school!

7. You can re-live any point
of time in your life. The time-span can only be a half-hour, though.
What half-hour of your past would you like to experience again?

Do I get to change anything?  If so, I’d choose my wedding reception because I would choose to not let my brother make me cry.  If not, then I’d choose when Chris and I were dancing in Prague to U2 in the nightclub.  That was awesome.

8. Rufus appears out of
nowhere with a time-traveling phone booth. You can go anytime in the
PAST. What time are you traveling to and what are you going to do when
you get there?

1848 Seneca Falls Convention and I would sign the Declaration of Sentiments.

9. You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be?

I believe that everything happens for a reason, so I tend to believe that even the really bad stuff has made me who I am.    But if I could, would I eliminate some of the bad stuff?  Um, yeah.  But I’m not telling.

10. You got kicked out of
the country for being a time-traveling heathen who sleeps with
celebrities and has super-powers. But check out this cool shit… you can
move to anywhere else in the world! Bitchin’! What country are you
going to live in now?

Italy.  I’d own a vineyard and make wine.  And the girls would eat lots of olives.

11. The constant
absorption of magical moonbeams mixed with the radioactive vegetables
you consumed earlier has given you the ability to resurrect the dead
famous-person of your choice. So which celebrity will you bring back to
life?

Elizabeth I (does she count as a celebrity?) because I think she’d be cool to hang out with if she were my age.

12. What’s your theme song?

I feel like it should be "Who Needs Sleep?" by the Barenaked Ladies but it’s more likely "I Go To Extremes" by Billy Joel.