Jack!

Jesus I am tired! This has been a long week and I am ready for Halloween!! It seems if I am not at work, i am studying, or doing something for Jack's school. It is testing my crankiness factor for sure.

You know a little something else that test my crankiness factor? Jack. He tests what used to make me cranky or upset and takes that line I had firmly drawn in front of the Alamo, sword drawn and ready to attack Mexico, and he pushes it back about a half an inch . He could literally torch my bed while I am sleeping in it and if I made it out of the ashen mess I would melt at the sight of his smile.

I guess that's what it means to have children. They make you crazy and keep you sane all at the same time.

He brings me so much joy. Like he has this shirt, with a robot on it. It never occurred to me that he would know what a robot is at this age. But sure enough he came home one day.... well I picked him up and then brought him home, but for some reason when I play it back in my head he is throwing the front door open with great gusts of wind and bright lights coming from behind him.... and proudly points at his shirt and says, " Momma, bot!" So the bot shirt is now his favorite shirt.

Now he is going through this , I guess you would call it a phase, where everything that he likes is the most amazing thing on the face of the planet and everything he dislikes is equally on the opposite end of the spectrum. And every bit of the experience has to be somehow cataloged through my ears. As if by saying "momma, momma, momma." in rapid sucession is somehow going to make the experience more real or official.

And the screaming! I used to think that if he was screaming he was displeased, but either he learned or mommy caught up to his advanced intelligence, I am not sure which, but he now sceams at EVERYTHING. Happy, sad, scared, excited, thrilled, angry....all greeted with a great big "AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH"

I am learning to get my cut in this in little ways... Yesterday, I had planned for him to wear his robot shirt and I was excited to see him excited. So I fed him breakfast and waited for the right moment to break the news.

So like in high noon I square off at the opposite of the long hallway in my condo and I draw! I pull the shirt on a hanger out of Jack's closet. "oh Jackkkkk, look what mommy has." He smiles, because he always smiles.... then.... it registers. SHE... HAS....THE.....BOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It was like beatlemania and something akin to how I felt towards New Kids on the Block at age 10. He came barreling down the hallway squealing like a special ed kid on a roller coaster.

He crashed into me with the trust and love of someone that knew that if need be my knees would turn into pillows, and wrapped his arms around my calves. "MOMMMMMMEEEEE"
He screamed like he hadn't seen me in days.
I was extremely amused and it almost made up for the absolute torture of having to drag him down the stairs with his blanket and lunch pail and backpack, and my bag, fumbly to get the door closed while he ain't gettin' any lighter or less demanding that he has his juice cup NOW.
I would never throw my son down a flight of stairs ( that's wrong and illegal and I am FULLY aware of that, I am writing from a place of humor.... take a joke) , but there have been some mornings with that little piercing screech..... had the stairs been a big rubber slip and slide into a soft meadow of feather pillows he might of gotten to take that ride. I'm just saying. WEEEEEEEEEEE
And why isn't that the case? Why can I not have a big yellow or green, hell even blue, slide of sort to get downstairs in the morning? Life=so much easier. and fun!
And fun that's what Jack has brought into my life. The amazing challenge of finding the fun and humor in everyday situations. What a rascal!

Thanks and praise

I wanted to take some time to give glory to the big man upstairs. A peculiar thing happened to me while I was in my car Friday. I was sitting in traffic and the beggining of the song had just started so I stopped to listen. Then I hear what sounds like the start of a gospel song and I was about to change it. Not that I have anything against gospel music I like gospel music I guess I just wasn't in the mood for it at the moment. So I go to push the button and the man speaking the intro says something that grabbed my attention. "He will meet you at your need all you have to do is believe. Even through struggles.." and then he started naming off all these struggles... divorce, abuse, job loss, loneliness, family struggles... every SINGLE one I had been witness to in my life. As I am sitting there in traffic drinking my starbuck's on my way to get a pedicure I started to cry. Yeah I know that's retarded and I will probably get made fun of by whoever decides to read this, but I was crying because I was happy.
I HAD been delivered from all of those things and I had been filled with the feeling of warmth and a knowing that it's not over. God has much bigger plans for me and in that moment in my car I thought of all the prayers I thought had been unanswered or when I thought he wasn't listening and it was then that i realized he was and always had been. It was like my own little personal reminder that God loves me.
It's moments like that that make me realize how extraordinarily blessed I am, and I just had to share. Maybe this will serve to remind someone else of blessings in their life too. :)

Swine flu for dummies...

It has been a long day! Last night I moved myself onto the floor of my son's room about 2 o'clock in the morning because he was runnin hot and cold and was having severe coughing fits. I was beside myself with worry that he had contracted the swine flu and I wanted to be right there in case something happened or his condition got worse.
I was such a silly worried mother. I set my alarm to go off every 15 minutes just so I could turn on the light and make sure his coloring looked right and to give him water. Number one rule of baby illness... keep them hydrated.
So this morning, I called into work and Jack's daycare. I always have to be careful with what I say to Jack's daycare because they have a rule about certain symptons and how long the child can return back after said symptoms. For example, if your child runs over a 100 temperature you have to wait 24 hours after the fever has subsided to return them to school. So I am always very careful not to throw the f word out there too liberally. Like what if he had really bad allergies and he wasn't running a fever, but in my haste to explain that he was sick I just threw fever out there. In that instance I have just earned myself an automatic dr's. note.
So, I took him over to the Walgreen's take care clinic, because that was the most convienient place I knew of that would see him right away. I got there at 8 and was still expecting a hacking, coughing, sneezing line around the block, but we were the only ones there. some pandemic this is....
So I sign him in and the nurse practioner is ready for him almost immediately.
She writes down his symptoms and checks his ears and throat, and takes his temperature. And annouces proudly "Yep he's got the flu." I aksed nervously "Does he have the Swine flu?" To which she answers "Well, that's the one that's going around. You see Swine flu is at pandemic levels...." and more medical jargon nonsense, blah, blah, blah. I quit listening. Then she hands me some influenza literature and gives me directions to the pharmacy that is compounding Tamiflu for children's doses.
"It will cost you roughly $55 for the children's dose." she says, but I really quit listening or focusing after she vaguely accused my son of having H1N1.
So I get to the pharmacy and they tell me it's going to be $94 instead of the original $55. Which is annoying but what am I going to do? Not give my son medicine. So I let her know of my digust of having to pay, but say I will pay anyway because I have to.
She tells me the medicine will be ready in several hours and I can pay then. So I head over to the grocery store to keep with popsicle and orange juice and all the various home remedies I remember my mom giving me as a kid, and trying to keep it together.
So I call my aunt and tell her about Jack because at this point the media hype has gotten to me and the fact that this thing has a body count and I start to get a little emotional. Part from lack of sleep, part from worrying that I will be able to do enough for my sick little guy.
"Did you get the nasal swab?" I say no, but in my head I am thinking that I didn't need it because the CDC's website had all the symptoms that my son had as swine flu. "Well, you need to get up there and get it confirmed, that's important."
So I have gone from tired and worried and now I am starting to get annoyed. I go back to Walgreen's and now they have a huge coughing and sneezing line. I cut to the front and wheel Jack into the nurse's office in a shopping cart . "Does my son have Swine flu?" "Yes, he has all the symptoms that are associated with the H1N1 virus" "Ok, well I would like to get a swab done just in case to confirm because as soon as I call his school and tell them that it's swine flu they will freak." and they will. I was imagining it being on the 5o'clock news and the entire school closing down. Then I imagined them using Jack's name on TV as the root of it all and that was too much.

So she did the nasal swab and 10 minutes later my son had a cold. No flu, no H1N1 ( which if you replace the "1"s with "i"s, that spells hini , pronounced hiney. as in ass.) which is what I felt like for driving all over town because I blindly trusted this woman's at face diagnosis.
But I was SO RELIEVED. All this hype that has been built up in the media about this virus and it has definitely taken it's toll on my psyche.
To hear my dad tell it.. ( And I did, because I called him shortly there after to share in my outrage) It's a government conspiracy to get Obama's healthcare passed and the CDC's is a croc that was bought out by lobbyists and I should use some common sense and figure out what a cold is... thanks dad. Very uplifting convo today. ;)
I am glad that my sweet little angel is feeling better. Hell, after the coughing fit last night you would've never known he was sick today. Running around like a deliriously happy little elf.
So hindsight being what it is. I am so over the pandemic ala swine and I could of saved myself the money and effort and bought a gallon of orange juice instead.

Princess in a recession II- SAH KURITY

As I mentioned before when I first moved to Houston I had nothing and was determined to provide a life for Jack and me. So I swallowed my pride and stood in line at the welfare office.... and stood....and stood. And for good measure stood some more. So this is my recounting of some of the things that happened, exactly as they happened while I was in line.

The welfare office is a dangerous place filled with dangerous people, and don't let anyone tell you any different. Some people live to start a fight for some food stamps. They walk in with a chip on their shoulder and anyone that looks at them sideways it's on! The part of town the particular office I frequented was in the bad part of the bad part of town. Where even the hardened criminals are scared to go.

So I go in for another "appointment", which calling it an appointment is a crock. Basically you bring in everything you own and have someone look at it and tell you that you suck. Then your job is to convince them that you suck so bad that you need help from the government. Some people are better at this than others. In fact some people can drive into the office with brand new escalades and talk on their blakberries about how they make "cheddar" and get money from the government. I on the other hand have to convince them that my literally beaten up 4 year old car is worth less than a person that has never seen it tells me it is.

"Ma'am your car is worth more than the allowable amount for approval for aid." "So you're telling me that the car ,that I can't make payments on, is too valuable for me to get assistance to buy food which I also can't afford?" "Have you considered getting a cheaper car?" I almost laughed out loud because there were rims in the parking lot of that office that were worth more than my entire car.

THAT was on a day that I knew I had an appointment. THIS particular day I received a phone call the day before telling me to come in. So I go in and head straight to the appointment check in window which is also the renewal/ information window. Which by doing this I might as well have a target on my back because the 200 people in line that I have just cut in front of don't know and don't care that I have a scheduled appointment and I am simply signing in.

So I hear things like "Look at this bitch thinking she can all cut in front of us and shit. I've been in line for four hours " And "this white girl aint nothing." really? I am tempted to turn around and say something, but the fact that I am greatly outnumbered by angry line occupants and the officer to the right of me with the tazer and very large gun in her holster, keep me quiet.

I can't say the same for , well, we will call him "Sanchez" ....

The officer in this particular office also doubles for traffic control. Or as I like to call it, directing people that can't read English.

"OK EVERYONE IF YOU HAVE AN APPLICATION YOU MUST LINE UP ON THE FAR BACK WALL. DO NOT MOVE THE CHAIRS TO SIT WHILE YOU ARE WAITING IN LINE. THE CHAIRS ARE FOR PEOPLE WITH APPOINTMENTS OR THAT ARE WAITING TO SEE A CASE WORKER........" She continues... To which I now hear Sanchez mumble something to the effect of "I can sit wherever I damn well please." Let me say that Sanchez was not in consideration to be in the category of people that she was addressing because Sanchez is no where near the far back wall. Sanchez is in fact in the row furthest from the group of people that she is talking to, but the officer was walking in front of him at the time and I really think he was bored. So what the hell? Let's get mouthy with the law for giggles! tee hee.
"Sir I wasn't talking to you. I was speaking to the people that I have seen take the chairs from their original spots to a different location." "Oh so now your saying that I'm moving my chair. Miss I feel disrespected. I have been disrespected and that shit's not cool." At this point Sanchez is standing and flapping around like a break dancer about to make a serious move. "Sir I am going to need you to sit down please. I was not referring to you and therefore was not talking to you." "NOBODY TELLS ME TO F***IN' SIT DOWN. DO YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE F***ING WITH??" Well that must of pissed lady cop off because she flips the latch on her holster and gets up in Sanchez' face "SIR I AM AN OFFICER OF THE LAW!!" As she guides her free hand ala Vanna White over the holster just to let him know that , yes, she is an officer of the law, and , yes, she will kill him... dead.
"Man F*** that, you ain't sh**!!" as he sits down. "I am sorry that you feel disrespected." The officer replies back in a stern, but sincere tone. That cop tone that all cops speak in. They must teach it in cop school or something. "You ain't gotta be a bitch about it." Really Sanchez??? Shut the hell up!
So I turned around for a minute to talk with the lady behind the window while the friendly couple are trying to discern exactly why Sanchez is even there. When it's determined that he is there for moral support he is asked to leave.
Still flapping... he tells everyone to F*** themselves and shoves over a podium. A guard by the door grabs him and literally drags him down the three flights of stairs opposite the door. He is kicking and cursing the whole way down.
I don't know what happened to ol' Sanchez, but I know wherever he is NO ONE is disrepecting him.