List of Updates

I've been busy, to put it short.  Life is also getting much busier and hectic, but such is normal I suppose.

The rundown:  (If you have questions leave a comment & ask)

I'm having sinus surgery on the 28th.  Recent scans & tests & all that revealed that I have what appears to be a lot of extra cartilage blocking fluids from properly draining, thus causing me to have a sinus infection that absolutely will not go away...for at least the last 20 years of my life that I can remember constantly having sinus issues..

I see an orthopedic specialist on Thursday about my knee.  The base guess is that I have torn my ACL in my left knee.  Not completely torn, but enough that it is very weak, constantly swollen, and VERY painful.  Going down to the basement to do laundry is almost torture...add in the knee pain and it definitely qualifies as torture.  I have no clue specifically how I did it.  My knees always pop & occasionally I have some pretty bad pain in them from the arthritis, especially when the weather is being wonky, but it's normally just temporary & tolerable.  This is not greatly tolerable & it's swollen & it is a weird burning type of pain down the muscles even, so it hits no markers for the arthritis blow-off.  I'm not looking forward to this possible/probable surgery and the recovery process that will follow.

School is going well enough.  Kinda boring right now & lots of work, but such is school life I presume.  I'm hoping my next semester is better.

My BooMonkey Creations work is steady now.  I'm not getting rich or anything of that nature from it, but it is enjoyable and puts a few bucks in my pocket for various things that we've gone without or put off getting.  I'm hosting a fundraiser this month for a lovely gal.  If you're interested please check it out here.

Brian is doing well enough.  Work is still annoying and he still deals with his own pains from past surgeries, but such is the new normal.

Mikeal is doing well in school.  He's up to over 300 AR points at school...AR points being points they get for reading books & passing tests over the books.  I think he said there's a 5th grader with more points at his school, so not too shabby for being a 4th grader & having only read the books since school started.  He's read ALL of the Harry Potter books, all the Narnia books, and almost all of another series or two, but they're not ones I'm all that familiar with so I couldn't tell you for sure.  I LOVE that he loves to read so much....but I do occasionally find myself threatening to ground him from reading due to his pre-teen attitude & behaviors.

Mikaila is doing awesome.  She's made great progress in her speech & the thought is she'll be able to drop speech therapy altogether by the time she starts Kindergarten.  She starts Kindergarten in the late Summer of 2013, so another year of therapy.  She is also getting ready to start physical therapy.  It's quite probable that her early hearing/inner ear issues early in life affected the way she moves, walks, etc so they're going to work with her on improving her balance and coordination to get her caught up on par with her classmates.

I guess that's the gist of it.  At least close enough.

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The Things I Carry

Cold metals have left their marks,

The smooth thin lines,

Barely recognizable as the years have passed;

Prove that I am capable of surviving. 

Laid there in fits of drunken anger

The blood, hot against the cold steel,

portrayed my marriage perfectly.

Four of them adorn my body,

each one followed by a promise

of sobriety,

of change,

of transformation.

At the time I believed he would

be the one to perform these actions.

Vile from my heart would fall out,

sounding like gentle roses upon his ears;

promises that I would love him,

be true to him,

and stand by him.

With each instance that I had to reaffirm

these promises to him

my resolve to find a way to escape solidified.

I changed from a young girl

wishing to be blissfully married

to a mother of a young child.

I transformed myself

from a scared mother

to a strong,

independent,

single mother.

Fresher marks now adorn my body.

Creases around my mouth and eyes

prove that I have learned to laugh again,

to smile without end.

Other new metals now wrap my finger;

the combination of metals and stones

affirm to me that I am now safe,

loved,

cherished.

The cool metals now warm my heart and soul.

The scars across my abdomen,

numb to the touch

attest that I have birthed two healthy children.

Their laughter and giggles fill my head

and overflow my heart on a daily basis.

My body carries permanent reminders

of a life I once lived

as well as markers of a life I live now.

I sobered up to the idea of what love,

faithfulness,

and marriage was about.

The scars I carry with me

serve as a reminder to a life once lived;

a warning to others of a life that shouldn’t be theirs;

a prayer that intelligence overrides passion.

....Mostly written as part of my Literature writing assignment in response to "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien, but wish to keep it & share it here.

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Mommy Guilt

That's what I'm told I'm supposed to feel.  Guilt for giving my charming daughter what she needs!

When I first held her during her first nap she snored.  I asked the doctor about it, was told it's likely just left over fluid and it'll clear up in a day or so.  I took his word for it because he's the professional and the way he worded it made sense.

Life went on.  After a week or so I noticed she had a chronic snotty nose.  Probably just reflux I was told.  Okay, I can handle that, after all my older child had HORRIBLE reflux for the first three years of his life.  I've walked that walk, so no big deal.  Hers wasn't as bad as Mikeal's was, but it was nearly identical, except she still snored.  That bit I was told was just a side effect of the reflux fluid that caused her snotty nose.  She was sleeping through the night, all was well, so okay, makes sense.  After all he's the professional, he'd been doing this for decades.  I'd seen him since I was 12, myself, here I was 25 years old.

Time went on, she made all her mile stones, on time, life was great, she started talking, and boy did she have a lot to say at just 8 months old.  She had a minimum of 25 words she used on a regular, correct basis.  It really helped that she has a brother 5 years older than she who talks non-stop. 

She ended up getting her first ear infection when she was 10 months old.  I wasn't distraught over it, yes she was sick, but my older child had his first one at roughly the same age.

So far, up to that point they were nearly identical...except Mikaila couldn't stand nursing at my breast, she'd fuss, fight, or when she did latch on she had a vicelike latch.  HOLY FUCK was it painful!

Mikeal, my first child to breastfeed latched on perfectly from the git go and it was absolute smooth sailing...outside of that first day when my foggyhead forgot the bit about having to change a diaper too, and let him nurse roughly 8 hours because it was the only thing that kept him from screaming...and he sucked blisters onto my nipples that burst a few days later.  THAT SUCKED...however, we were able to move past that, exclusively breastfeeding for 10 months before I had to go back to work, then we supplemented with real foods until he decided he wanted food & a sippy cup instead of mama milk.  He was great with it, I was okay with it.  All is well that ends well.  Not one time did he have formula, money well saved.

Mikaila, on the other hand, for two months I worked hard to bite my lip through the nursing sessions, often crying out of pain, but I was producing well, was even able to pump an additional 4-6 ounces after each feeding that I wanted to pump so that I could let Mikeal & Brian feed her from a bottle and she LOVED the bottle feedings...so long as the bottle was positioned just so.  I spoke with lactation specialists, I spoke with my doctor, I spoke with his nurse practioner, had a year of my own personal experience with it, including personal experience with blisters, thrush, mastitis, an unsupportive, abusive husband, I tried nipple shields, etc.  Anything they threw at my I tried and I became exhausted & depressed.  By the 3rd month of her life we switched to formula & bottles and life was happy again.  I didn't fail, I provided what worked best for my family, what made my daughter happy and healthy.  I succeeded!

But, as I mentioned, before backtracking, Mikaila had her first ear infection at 10 months old.  Mikeal only ever had 2 his whole life, but I had experience with them with my nephews who had chronic ear infections, so recognized all the signs early, took her in, she was given the standard ear drops & antibiotic, all was well....except...

By the time she was a year old I noticed she'd nearly quit talking.  She was doing more tantrum throwing, she quit sleeping through the night, and life became Hell.  My depression set in, the fingers were pointed at me for not putting her on a consistent enough schedule, not doing this right, not doing that right, you name it, I was failing.  The professionals told me so, and I believed them...not really, but I was supposed to, so I tried all the crap they told me to try with her.

Mikaila & her Uncle Bradley (my youngest stepbrother)

A few months later the bad behaviors were only worse, not better.  I took her again and again to the doctor.  Was given antibiotic bottle after bottle or a pep talk on the importance of schedules and sleep in infants/toddlers...as if I didn't know this or something, fuck I only had a 6 year old child who thrives WAY above the charts in everything, I tend to think I know what I'm doing.  But I was failing with my daughter.  She wasn't talking, she only screamed, she didn't sleep, would only nap 4-5 times a day for 10minutes -2 hours at a time and I was EXHAUSTED.

I lived near my mother, sister, other folks ones would think I could count on to be supportive of me, but instead they only added to the guilt I was already feeling.  Depression dug her claws in deeper.

I googled everything I could think of, talked to other mothers, was eventually left with the impression that I needed to take Mikaila in for more testing.  Specifically testing for Autism or other similar diagnosis.  I needed help and I wasn't getting it.

She underwent all the tests they threw at us.  Vision screenings were good.  Hearing screenings were good.  Just her behaviors were a bit off, but she wasn't consistent with her behaviors.  One week she'd appear to be fully on the spectrum, the next week she seemed normal, just didn't talk.  At 18 months old we started the occupational therapy with a therapist that came to the house once every other week, or so.

After a few months *I* noticed that if I spoke LOUDLY to her or included gestures to specify what she may need or want she didn't scream as much.  I mentioned it to the therapist & the doctor...and was told then to just continue and was given a book in baby sign language.  WHAT THE FUCK!  My daughter's hearing screenings came back good, she didn't quite meet the proper guidelines to be labeled as autistic or as having any actual disability because nothing was ever solidly regular.  Sometimes she was, sometimes she wasn't.  I was told it was just a short coming of my own, because I wasn't consistent enough with her.  Pile on the guilt.  After all, these are the professionals, and I know nothing about any of this.

By Mikaila's 2nd birthday my body was shutting down.  I'd gone almost a whole year with no more than 1-5 hours of sleep a day.

In November, before her 2nd birthday (birthday Dec 13), I laid down to go to sleep with my stomach severely cramping, within 10 minutes I had to make a mad dash to the bathroom.  I'm quite confident that there was absolutely nothing left in my digestive tract ..except blood.  LOTS and lots of blood.  I had to go to my mom's early the next morning to spend the day doing laundry at her place for the week, packed up the laundry, feeling a bit faint, but managing.  I was mom afterall, I can keep going.  I fainted a few times after I got to my mom's and was still shitting blood.  A combination of black & bright red, but it was blood nonetheless.  Enough to make me faint from the blood loss over the 6 hour ordeal.  My mom called a friend of hers to watch the kids and she took me to the ER.  It was quite the busy day in the tiny ER - three car wrecks resulting in 4 people being helivaced out to bigger hospitals, other massive traumas, a motorcycle vs telephone pole accident...I was given an IV and waited. And waited.  The single ER doc there that day, bless his heart, was just plum exhausted.  I rehydrated and was released with the diagnosis of hemorrhoid rupture.  Ok, whatever, he's the professional, I'd been there for many hours already and was feeling at least a bit better...plus my mom was watching my kids and I had laundry left to get done and you know, mom stuff to take care of.

A few more months of OT and no real progress.  We did discover melatonin around Christmas and for about 2 months my life was GRAND!  I was able to sleep!  Still not more than 4-5hrs at a time, but a MASSIVE improvement over the 10-30 minutes of sleep at a time.  Then the melatonin effects started becoming hit and miss and back to the guilt being laid on for drugging my child because I was just too lazy to do everything else that we'd already tried to get her to sleep.

We moved from Oklahoma to Tennessee when Mikaila was 27 months old.  I immediately sought out the Early Intervention program to restart her therapies here and learned SOOOO much!  To start with hearing screenings and hearing TESTS were two totally different things...the screening showed that her hearing was perfect, but her behaviors showed differently.  A referral from the new doc and she was on her way to having a test ran on her hearing by an ENT.  The ENT noticed that she had quite the build up of fluid on her ear drums.  I told him she'd been on antibiotics almost all of the last year for 'ear infections' that weren't quite ear infections, just the beginning stages of one...ear infections without the redness & fever, just the fluid.  Clue #1.


He prescribed a round of antibiotics stronger than amoxicillan, went back two weeks later, fluid still there.  He had also noticed that her adenoids were inflamed & her tonsils were LARGE.  July 1st, when she was 2 1/2 years old she had surgery to remove her adenoids and have tubes put in her ears.  She was a bugger to wake up from the surgery and never fully woke up, but did eat the popcicles they gave her and fought us when we'd try to wake her up, after a few hours they sent us home anyways.  She slept for almost 24 full hours, straight.  I worried and fretted over it the whole time.

When she awoke it was like she was a totally different child.  Normal talking bothered her GREATLY, fireworks bothered her, whereas the year before she could sit right under them and fully enjoyed them, she had to cover her ears after her surgery.  Within a week she was sleeping through the night and her daytime behaviors were so much less frustrating for both of us.  Mommy guilt started lifting.  But then it was quickly added back in by persons who blamed me for not getting this taken care of earlier.  You know, because the professionals were incompetent I should have known that.  I did suspect it, but when you live in the middle of nowhere where there are only two doctors, only one of which accepts your insurance you're kinda limited on what you can do on an extremely limited budget.

By the time Mikaila aged out of the Early Intervention program her assessment was that she just needed speech therapy.  She was transferred into the preschool program at the elementary school and life has steadily gotten better.

She goes to bed every night at 8pm and 90% of the time is asleep within 10 minutes, she gets up between 6am and 8am, and life is as it should be with a 3 year old who only has a speech impairment.

A few weeks ago, on the 25th of August she went in for a sleep study because she still snores, still has muffled speech, etc and due to the HUGE success with the adenoid removal & tube placement I wanted to look into the option of the benefits of removing her abnormally huge tonsils.  You would think this would be a good thing, right?  I have competent doctors who have tried things and we've had GREAT success.  No, instead I get more outsider guilt piled on because I'm now 'mutilating' my daughter because I'm a lazy/unfit parent and don't seem to want to take responsibility or something for my daughter's behaviors & muffled speech.  By these 'professionals' (meaning persons with longer life experience/multiple more children experience) my daughter is behind because of me...and for some reason my son excels, even though my daughter's life has been EASY in comparison to his at this age.  I won't lie, until he was about 5 years old life was a constant inconsistent rollercoaster.  If all the experts and professionals had a cookie cutter clue my son, who is 'perfect' child material - if you take off the tween attitude - should be an absolute hellion who's flunking kindergarten, still.  He just turned 9 and in the 4th grade gifted program, give me a fucking break!


This past Wednesday we went back to the ENT for the results of the sleep study.  Her sleep score is comparable to that of a 500lb, 50 year old man, who smokes 3 packs a day.  She's 3 1/2 and weighs 37lbs and doesn't smoke.  On several occasions her oxygen level dropped below 80%.  Not good, at all.  Her tonsillectomy is scheduled for October 10.  And I am HAPPY about this.  I am looking forward to my wee daughter having surgery, again.

She was cursed with my larger than normal tonsils & adenoid tissue.  I can't do anything about that, that tidbit was the way the genes fell, but I can do something about improving her quality of life.  Lay more guilt on me.  Such a horrible mother I am for being relatively excited over her having surgery to remove her tonsils with the hopeful expectation this will further clear her airway so she can breathe, eat, talk, sleep, etc like a normal healthy child does.

Special tribute to Caryn (@ihave7monsters) and her post about her own 'Professional' run Mommy Guilt here.  We, the mother/father/fulltime caretaker of children, ARE the professionals when it comes to our children.  Just because someone has a bunch of debt and fancy letters after their name doesn't mean they are right when it comes to our children.

Edit to add:  My bouts with depression have gotten a bit better.  I'm getting more sleep & Mikaila has made progress with talking so life doesn't seem as damning.  The support from friends is great, both online and offline; professionals are doing their job - addressing my concerns and sending us off to specialized professionals when the concern is  out of their specialization.  It is still a work in progress, I am still battling some personal health issues that became quite exaggerated during Mikaila's first few years of life, but these problems didn't just suddenly appear, so they're not going to be quickly fixed.  Everyday is a new adventure and life is relatively good.


****Update October 26, 2011****


Mikaila had the tonsillectomy on October 10th.  

So far we have been able to notice that her speaking is MUCH clearer, it no longer sounds like she has cotton in her mouth.  Still has some delay, but quickly gaining ground & catching up.


Mikaila no longer snores at night.  Absolutely the most heart wrenching thing to be laying by your baby girl, who for almost 4 years has snored every night of her life, and then notice that you are not hearing her breathing...took me almost a week to stop rousing her while she was sleeping, just to be sure that she was just asleep.


I have also not noticed a single runny nose, not even an inkling of a runny nose.  I had noticed a difference after her adenoids were removed in July of 2010...but with the removal of the tonsils & regrown adenoid tissue I can't recall a single runny nose.


Her daytime attitude is MUCH better.  She sleeps all night now that her throat no longer hurts, and life is peaceful...once we get past the bedtime battles 2-3 times a week.

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Depression

...sucks.

That's really all I have to say, but I'll likely ramble anyways about whatever escapes from my fingers onto this post by use of the keyboard.

In no particular order:

I miss my dad. He's been dead now for just over four years, but I've not gotten to hang out with him in 10. Sure we talked on the phone a few times & wrote a few letters back and forth, but it wasn't the same. See, my dad spent the last 6 years of his life sitting behind bars. He was given a 30 year sentence for a crime I don't believe he committed. Of course the argument stands that if he didn't commit it then he wouldn't have been given a 30 year sentence, not in this day & age...yea, our judicial system is so upright where innocent folks aren't locked away & the guilty are that - guilty. I mean, just look at the whole Casey Anthony or O.J. Simpson things, right?

I rest my case.

I've tried really hard over the last 10 years to wrap my brain around it to the point that it's so wrapped I think it's just warped instead. I really don't want to believe either side. If I take my dad's side of things and defend him, well, I've lost a great deal of close relationships because I did take his side. If I take his accuser's side then I am compelled to be completely disgusted with my father, but also betray what my heart & mind tells me. The most fucked up part of all that is I may not be quite so conflicted about it had some folks not been so adamant that my dad was completely innocent...until my grandparents both died. It was almost immediately upon their deaths that all these folks, who'd supported my dad, bailed on him, trash talked him, and to this day paint him as the worst kind of scum to walk the planet. Of course his accuser went from just a spoiled little brat trying to get what she wanted to the patron saint of all that's right but wrong in the world, a poor innocent victim. Fuck her.

I miss the children that I birthed that were born with barely a fighting chance at life. Dear Alonna was a victim of doctors not putting all the pieces together & me being so utterly depressed I barely made it through the last half of my senior year of high school. Her father, my first husband, was killed in a car wreck days after we'd gotten married. During our short marriage, because I was a FIRM "virgin until marriage" person, I conceived her. Between severe depression, ulcers, stress, school, work, family life, God only knows what all ailed me at that time, doctors had me on a nice little cocktail of medications to treat each and every ailment. No heed was paid to the notion I could have been pregnant. Hell, I didn't even think anything of it. I still had bleeding from time to time, I didn't pay that close attention to timing and all that because I wasn't having sex...had only had sex twice, and it was in wedlock. Teenage pregnancy doesn't happen except out of wedlock, right? OH, YES, I was a naive one back then. She was born in December...in fact she, Mikaila & my Grandpa all share the same birthday, December 13th. My pregnancy wasn't confirmed until after I'd fallen down a flight of stairs just a few weeks before. The fall down the stairs wasn't detrimental to her, even though I'd like to blame something so innocent on the loss of her life. No. She was born with very underdeveloped organs or holes in the organs that did develop due to all the different medications I had been on during the majority of my pregnancy. I was given the option to have a late-term abortion, but I wouldn't hear of it! What kind of fucking moron suggests such a thing to an 18 year old gal who's not only lost her husband & best friend since preschool, but is now finding out she's PREGNANT and VERY near her due date, just mere weeks after her parents told her to "Get your dog, your computer, don't forget your hamster & the rest of your shit & get lost?!" Simply because she wasn't paying enough of the bills anymore because she was trying to move out into her own place... Then of course I had her, without the first drop of pain medication, because I was scared out of my fucking gourd after learning about all the medications I had been on for the previous 9+ months. I still, to this day, have issues with taking medications & hesitate going down stairs... I PLEADED with the doctors & nursing staff to pull a miracle out of their asses. I don't blame them. They tried. For 14 hours they worked to sustain her. Reflecting on it 11 years later now, pieces of me wish I would have saved them each that grief. It's not the loss of Alonna that haunts me so much as the looks on the doctors' and nurses' faces as they not only tried to console me but also make my miracle come true. Thing that haunts me further is the stigma that "we don't talk about that".

Then there was Bridgett. I got pregnant with her almost immediately after Mikeal was born. Ok, not completely immediately, but I'd gotten my first depo shot after he was born, then my ex husband was thrown in jail for attempting to rape a 5 year old...I was given a lame story about how this little girl had walked in on him while he was peeing in a laundry room and it was just some messed up misunderstanding & all he was guilty of, from the early stories I was told, was indecent exposure. I did what any scared, almost 21 year old girl who's been horribly abused by her husband & no one there to support her, except him, with a 4 month old...I believed him & by my upbringing I stood by him. During the early hoopla of all that I missed my appointment to get my next depo shot, was pregnant when I finally did get a chance to make-up that appointment. I hid that pregnancy for as long as I could during the court proceedings. On our anniversary, in June, I was 23 wks along I shared the news with my ex. He responded by beating the shit out of me & throwing a 27" TV at me...back before they were just 10lb pieces of plastic. Then he left to go smoke some meth with his cousins down the road. ((My naive ass didn't know a thing about any of that until well after the fact.)) I carried my 10 month old son & drug my bleeding ass to a neighbor's house, where the lights were on...it was only about 2am...and they called an ambulance for me. All I really remember was about 24 hours later I was being released from the hospital & that my baby girl had died. I did file a police report. All that got me was a rap for being a troublemaker & liar by the police department. Afterall, the Lieutenant's adopted son would NEVER do such a thing! I made the whole thing up!

I'm proud of the fact that I went to the meeting with his lawyer not long after that...I heard the confession tape for myself & learned the whole truth behind the charges. He'd picked a 5 year old girl up from an apartment complex, took her into a laundry room there, & considered having sex with her before some of the effects of the meth & alcohol he was on wore off just enough for him to let her go. I then spent the next few weeks charming my ex. I'd swear up and down how I'd be there for him & I'd never screw him over, yada yada yada yada yada. He was given a 4 MONTH sentence with only 4 years probation. On September 22nd he was booked on the charges...I left from the courthouse, with his ATM & credit cards in hand, & wiped those suckers clean, including the overdraft privileges. I sold what clothes of his that were left over from my brothers picking through them, I didn't make the first one of his vehicle payments, then I broke every fucking rule that bastard had laid upon me of what I wasn't allowed to do while he was incarcerated. I'd then write him letters telling him about how I started smoking, was going out to the bars, sleeping with whatever I felt like, doing whatever I liked. That $900 wedding ring set he'd bought me & still had a nice balance on - sold them for $175...then had a GRAND time at the bar....at least I think it was grand. I woke up in the bed of the truck, somewhere. ((Mikeal was safe at a babysitter's, who knew/understood/something to that effect my mental state of mind at that time.))

A few months later, on Mother's Day, I called Child Services on myself. I was in a desperate state of mind and was under the impression that they'd at least help me. I was suffering from alcohol addiction, was basically homeless, and well...it was bad. Know what child services did for me? Nada. Told me that because I had the presence of mind to call them that it meant that I was a good mother and could figure it out & didn't see Mikeal as being in any real danger. I BEGGED and PLEADED with them to PLEASE place him in a safe home & to help me get into a treatment program. They didn't. The next day I left Mikeal in the care of my 'less than fit roommate'...while he was passed out drunk (not Mikeal, the roommate) and got a job a few blocks away, working graveyard shift at Waffle House. Thankfully I had some awesome coworkers that let Mikeal & I move into their one bedroom apartment...then instead of going out to the bars I joined a chatroom.

I met a TON of very wonderful folks in that chatroom, and minus a few details, I moved from Tulsa, Oklahoma to Austin, TX, to move into a house with a complete stranger. Folks down there would drive an hour one direction to help me get out and look for a job, others would watch Mikeal for me, one guy gave me a car...I met Brian during all of that...yada yada...I sobered up, mostly, and my mother grew up a bit. I went back and lived with her for a while so I could get my divorce taken care of 100%, then moved back to Texas, eventually reconnected with Brian again, he proposed at my dad's funeral dinner, we went back home, in Texas, pregnant, yada yada...we've been married almost 4 years now with a Mikaila added to our family.

My ex is still a complete asshole.

My current marriage, like any other, has it low points, but overall it's awesome. I love where I live now, I love my friends, & tolerate most of my family, but I'm completely in admiration of my children and husband! But yet I still feel depressed. The logical side of me says I have no reason to be depressed. There's nothing I can do about the death of these loved ones, I know that having another child isn't going to replace any of the ones I've lost. I can't pinpoint a reason behind my depression. I'm mostly 'at peace' with the trauma my past inflicted upon me, but then every once in a while it just completely blindsides me and throws me for a complete loop and I don't even know what to think. The littlest thing can set it off and big things won't even phase me. I constantly feel like I'm swimming in a black hole that is devoid of everything, but yet I can see that I'm surrounded by all these folks that I know love & care about me and I just feel empty, withdrawn, and sad. But mostly angry.

The anger bothers me the most.

I'm absolutely justified to feel the anger. I can't think of many folks who wouldn't blame me for completely lashing out at some folks who have caused this anger. But at the same time I'm better than that. I feel guilty for having this anger. I want to just let go of the anger but I can't. I can for short periods. Most of the time I don't even notice it lingering. I don't want to be angry. I don't like feeling this way. This in turn makes me not like myself. And the cycle starts again. I've done decent, in my mind, with coping with it. I've gotten better. Stronger. But it's still there, haunting me. I know it's effected persons around me, I try to keep it hidden, to keep it a secret...because it's just not one of those things we talk about... I don't even know how to talk about it. I don't know how to fix it. Sure I can repress it and pretend it doesn't exist...for a while. But I'm not comfortable with that and that fuels my anger, just in more directions.

I don't know what to do at this point. I'm not even sure I even know what I WANT to do. I just know that my head isn't always healthy & it may never be fully healthy...but I also don't want to go through the rest of my life with this anger hoovering over me.

This grown-up shit is hard.


~*~Then of course I'm searching for info that I need, again, for my assignment, that was erased by Windows' need to fucking update without warning and restart without allowing me to save any work I'd worked SOO fucking hard on...and I run across this blog post. I needed it. I'm going to start working on setting the tone to my own happiness & fulfillment...by starting on #3, especially.~*~

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Fire Pit of Reasons....#5-7

Stories #1-4 can be found here, as well as the reason for this series of posts....

Again I repeat my disclaimer & warning, after all this is a new post...and not everyone reads part 1 before moving onto part 2....


Instead of ending this post with a disclaimer or other such 'you shouldn't pay attention to this tale' I'm going to start with a list of warnings & disclaimer:

* If you are severely scared of heights you probably shouldn't read any further.
* If you have children you may not wish to continue.
* If you have a tendency to take someone else's mishaps and apply them as possibilities in your own life and react accordingly you probably shouldn't proceed either.
* Please advance with caution if you have a heart condition, are pregnant, or other known or unknown health issues that may be direly afflicted by reading these highlights.

All stories you are about to read are the complete truth by my knowledge, my mother can back up at least 75% of these stories, medical records & child services reports can back up almost as many...and the rest, NEVER tell my mother about, she'd KILL me. ((Okay, so if you read my entry that was a Tribute to my Father you'd likely be close to right in your guess that by now my mom likely already knows all these stories, but lets not remind her of them, that would be best for my health.))

Now that that's out of the way I'm hoping you did take me seriously with my warnings...these tales of "Reasons Stephanie Does NOT do Heights" is not for the faint, weak stomached, or otherwise paranoid type persons.

Disclaimer: *I* have never broken a bone, NOR have I ever received a single stitch (outside of ones necessary to deliver my children via cesarean)...my siblings on the other hand, well....Lets just say I can learn from the mistakes of others.

*******continuation*******

Stick #5
**stage set** I'm now age 10...siblings aged 8, 7, & 4...it was just past my birthday and my birthday is the first one of the year, hence the reason it seems like the ages are a bit off here...Mom & Dad take us to the city park.

Again, this story involves a set of monkey bars, but it's your generic run of the mill metal monkey bars. I'm tall enough by this time that I can pretty much touch the ground and the monkey bars at the same time....pretty much meaning on tippy toes & with the tips of my fingers. So I'm safe from the wrath of monkey bars.

I had also mastered the concept of how to go across the monkey bars without issue. I'm also not quite the toothpick I had been a few years before...thank you stupid hormones. So, when my mom instructed me to help keep an eye on my sister while on the monkey bars it's no big deal. She's almost gotten the hang of it, I just have to help catch her if she slips.

But I'm 10 and the last thing I really want to do is have to hang out and watch my younger sister who was/is the spoiled brat of the litter. But I oblige because I'm the helpful type & I do what I'm told.

So Samantha is going across the monkey bars, falling & crying & whining every time she falls off because she can't make it past the 2nd rung of the bars...and anyone knows that holding someone's legs as they attempt the monkey bars does not do much in the way of actually helping them learn how to do the monkey bars since you need to be able to swing your legs.

After a few rounds of this I decide I'm going to go across the monkey bars WITH her, with my legs wrapped around her torso to help keep her on the bars & give her some room to fall, but while holding onto me.

I'm not terribly sure how many of you are aware of this, but when it's summer & you're going across metal monkey bars the bars are HOT and you naturally develop blisters on your hands if you're not accustomed to swinging across the monkey bars. BAD combination.

So here I am, legs wrapped around my 7 year old sister's chest, swinging across the monkey bars. We make it all the way across successfully the first time. The whiny little brat is insistent on doing it again, despite the fact that both of our hands are blistered & the bars are hot. We get almost halfway across when I decide I'm done, my hands are on FIRE from popped blisters & the hot metal bars.

I inform my sister of my intentions to let go of her and be done. She was NOT okay with this. The spoiled little brat reared her head & let go, with both hands, to grab my legs that were still wrapped around her body. The sudden addition of her 70 pounds of dead weight caused quite the catastrophic fall to the ground. I hit square on my butt, essentially breaking her fall...and her elbow.

For the rest of the summer, since it was my fault she fell & broke her elbow, I was entrusted with the chore of doing everything for her. Yea, because even then I was my sister's biggest fan, now I have to wait on her, hand & foot, for weeks that never wanted to end. Lesson learned: just ignore the whiny brat as much as possible if she wants help, she'll just screw you over in the end anyways...I've relearned this lesson a few dozen times since then. Some folks just never change.

I never did the monkey bars again until I had my own kids, but by then I could hold onto the bars & nearly drag my knees on the ground.

Stick #6
*stage set* Autumn, after my sister's cast is finally off & life has moved on, I'm still 10. We acquired a young pair of Belguim horses. The male, King, is about 18 months old, has never had a saddle put on him, the female, Queenie is about 15 months old, still a few months shy of when my dad wants to start breaking her for riding. See, when my dad was a kid they rode horses, broke horses, and my dad was known, very well, across the area as being a 'horse whisperer'. He had a great knack for breaking even wild horses for riding. This was the main reason we ended up with this pair of horses, the other reason being that the owners, folks my folks had gone to school with, were getting divorced & had to sell the horses & split the cost. I think my dad paid $2 for the horses. His buddy's wife wasn't terribly happy about it from what I remember, but whatever....

Since you've likely already read my post that was a tribute to my father you know that I was a daddy's girl. I wanted to be like my dad in all possible ways...well, all ways that it's possible for a girl to be like her daddy. So it was only natural that I was out with him as he worked this pair of horses. Queenie was EASY. At least in the eyes of my 10 year old self. She was very calm, gentle, no issues, took to having a bareback rider like it was completely natural. Likely the reason my dad let that be the first horse I ever got onto the back of. I was a 'natural' just like my daddy. ♥

I was out there every day with him working with the horses. I only ever got on the back of Queenie the one time to get a 'feel' for being on a horse. He didn't want to stress her too much with having a rider since she was still quite young, but he stood there by my side & walked us around the platform he stood on.

We worked King to the point of he finally being willing to stand there and let me climb on his back. Do keep in mind that my dad does the whole ease the horse into accepting riders with no saddle, then learn them the saddle later. We did have the bit & reigns on him, so I had something to hold onto & guide with.

After about a month of getting him used to me sitting on his back, my dad being right there, able to touch me the whole time, & with a hand on the reign he decided it was time for my first 'real' riding lesson. He gave me both reigns, talked me through MANY different scenarios, not failing to mention the fact that I'd heard maybe EVERY horror story of his & his brothers, including the time a snake spooked my uncle's horse, making it rear back, and the saddle horn embedding into my uncle's thigh. But I'm a chip off my dad's hip, I've got this, I'm a NATURAL....

Except I'm not. Once we got away from the safety of the platform & King realized that my dad had no control of him he BOLTED. He ran me straight to the woods, through the woods, then back again. It was that back again that got me. I was a bit scared & disorientated with the sudden bolt and this being my first time alone on a horse that I didn't react perfectly. I did great on the first run through the woods, I'd remembered my dad's & uncle's stories of such mishaps & knew to keep my body as close to the horse's body as possible & to just hang onto the reigns. Remember, I have no saddle....

King took a hard right, I looked up out of shock as I knew the pond fed stream & a small ravine were in that direction & I wanted to see just where we were headed. Somewhere in that same split second King jumped that ravine (which is only about 2 feet across, about 6 feet deep). So here I was, completely upright due to lifting up to see where we were headed, combined with that whole stupid inertia law of Newton's, and then I stopped suddenly. I was by my waist, hanging from a tree limb, over this ravine.

Belgium horses are not small or even typical sized horses by any stretch of the imagination...they are HUGE. So when one leaps into the air you're guaranteed to be at least 10 feet off the ground. Add in a deep (okay, 6ft deep) ravine below you and you're looking at hanging from a tree limb roughly 20 feet in the air - that's two whole floors of an average office building. Add in a healthy respect for heights and being only 10 years old, unable to catch your breath, and well, a full blown panic attack likely going to be your best friend. Stupid gravity brought me to the ground during that panic attack. I couldn't get my legs to cooperate into wrapping around the limb so I could make a safer descent down the tree.

I did walk away from the incident, I did have a touch of arthritis settle into my hip after that & it gives me fits when the weather isn't perfect, but I didn't break anything. The horses were sold at the auction the following weekend...we never did ever own another horse. Mom just knows the part where the horse ran threw the fence, tearing out a few 4x4 wooden fence posts on his way.

I've since been on a few horses, mainly the carnival type that are hooked to a set of bars that they then walk in a circle. I still haven't mastered dismounting from a saddle & stirrups without getting one foot hung up in the stirrup and landing on my butt, hanging by one foot. I don't have a fear of horses...I have a fear of hanging 20 feet in the air and the gravity induced fall that follows, therefore I no longer get on a horse unless I HAVE to...have to meaning to show my kids that there's nothing wrong with getting on a horse. Riding horseback on the beach, at sunset, is absolutely NOT on my 'bucket list'.

Stick #7
*stage set* I'm 11 now, in 6th grade, and it's winter. What you don't know yet is that since 1st grade and I started school full time (because back then kindergarten was still only a half day) I rode the bus too and from school. You also don't know that because we lived 1/4 of a mile out of city limits, down a steep dirt road hill, the bus did not come down our road, much less stop in front of our house. We had to WALK that 1/4 mile up hill, at 6am, to catch the bus. It did not matter what the weather was like. Mom & Dad both worked from 6am to 4pm, leaving the house around 5:30am, getting home around 4:30pm. I was awakened everyday at 4:30 am to start my chores. I had two goats I had to milk before & after school, chickens, rabbits, dogs, & pigs to feed & water every single day, eggs to also gather after school. I was in 2nd grade when I started milking the goats. So here we are, 6th grade...in Arkansas, it snowed. A very DEEP snow (ok, about 2 feet, but we NEVER saw that much snow, EVER)...so we ended up with a few snow days until the roads the buses took were able to pass without putting kids into too much of harm's way....

Now, remember, we had to walk UP the hill to catch the bus, this meant walking back DOWN the hill to go home. Our road is one of those more or less extended driveways that a few people live down - mainly crotchedly older folks who have no kids living at home and rarely has grandkids that come visit.

Now, the typical thing for any 11 & 10 year old child to want to do under such circumstances is to want to go sledding! There's actually enough snow to be able to do so still on the road, no trees in the road to crash into. Except, when you're 11 you don't take into consideration that the road takes a sharp turn at the bottom of the first crest in the road, where the hill kinda levels out, where the houses are...it curves sharply because if you continue straight you go clear to the bottom of the hill where that spring/pond fed ravine is. This is also a dirt road that about 8 people drive up and down on a daily basis, it's not gotten yet warm enough for the road to be anything but a solid sheet of ice. Walking up the hill with the road that way involved basically walking in the weeds & using the brush along the sides of the road to haul yourself UP the hill.

After being let off the bus my brother Daniel & I got the bright idea to sled down the hill, using our coats and book laden backpacks as the sleds. Remember gravity & inertia? Yea, that thing that says an object in motion will continue to be in motion until an outside force stops it. You gain speed as you go downhill, especially on ice. We think of this fact about the time we get where the road takes a sharp turn...and there's a truck coming UP the hill. Natural reaction says to move, QUICKLY out of the way of this truck that is trying to keep up enough speed to make it both around the curve and then UP the hill in one attempt. We turn our bodies in the direction opposite of the curve. And wind up at the bottom of the hill, at the edge of the ravine.

If you doubly remember there's a creek that runs through this ravine & there are many trees around, so there's ice ...lots of ice. And I'm still a graceful baby giraffe that's learning to walk for the first time on the side of a rocky mountain. It's a good 40 feet from the bottom of this hill back to the road. An hour or so later we still haven't made it back up the hill. The bus dropped us off around 4pm...Mom & Dad get home around 4:30pm. We're also the realllllly super poor kids... To say our folks weren't terribly happy about us using our school books, backpacks, & only winter coats for sleds was an understatement. ((We made it back up the hill by walking the edge of the ravine to the edge of our property line - 10 acres across - where there was a fence, then used the barb wire fence to hold onto to get up the hill.)) Add in the fact we didn't make it to the house until almost 6pm...long story short I still can't go sledding...not just because my folks grounded me for LIFE, but because I've never seen a good sledding hill that doesn't have a road across the bottom of the hill and I know ice plus inertia plus gravity plus moving vehicles just don't go well together.

After that incident (that also involved some police officers) my folks went to the school transportation board & within a week we tore down & rebuilt the fence around our house, cut down a few trees, and the bus started using our driveway to pull into, turn around in, and pick us up/drop us off from school. We then moved to Oklahoma that summer & the bus since hasn't had to go down that road...

I'll conclude this installment for the time being.

The next installment I'll include the instances of my teenagehood where ladders & roofs were involved....

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Fire Pit of Reasons....#1-4

...for my giraffe legs staying firmly on the ground. ☺ (I'd add pictures, but Blogger isn't cooperating at this time.)

Inspired by the Lovely JC of The Animated Woman (@LittleAnimation) & my comment on her Thrill Ride Adventures. :)

From a young age, VERY young age I learned that being off the ground can have some very dire consequences....Since then there have been many events that have only worked to help ingrain that into my brain, just as I think I'm starting to get brave enough to leave the comfy Earth.

Instead of ending this post with a disclaimer or other such 'you shouldn't pay attention to this tale' I'm going to start with a list of warnings & disclaimer:

* If you are severely scared of heights you probably shouldn't read any further.
* If you have children you may not wish to continue.
* If you have a tendency to take someone else's mishaps and apply them as possibilities in your own life and react accordingly you probably shouldn't proceed either.
* Please advance with caution if you have a heart condition, are pregnant, or other known or unknown health issues that may be direly afflicted by reading these highlights.

All stories you are about to read are the complete truth by my knowledge, my mother can back up at least 75% of these stories, medical records & child services reports can back up almost as many...and the rest, NEVER tell my mother about, she'd KILL me. ((Okay, so if you read my entry that was a Tribute to my Father you'd likely be close to right in your guess that by now my mom likely already knows all these stories, but lets not remind her of them, that would be best for my health.))

Now that that's out of the way I'm hoping you did take me seriously with my warnings...these tales of "Reasons Stephanie Does NOT do Heights" is not for the faint, weak stomached, or otherwise paranoid type persons.

Disclaimer: *I* have never broken a bone, NOR have I ever received a single stitch (outside of ones necessary to deliver my children via cesarean)...my siblings on the other hand, well....Lets just say I can learn from the mistakes of others.

Stick in the FirePit #1:
*Setting the stage* I am 2 1/2 years old. My brother, Daniel, is 15 months old. My mother is 8 1/2 months pregnant with my sister, Samantha. We are living in a trailer house, on a Navy base 1200+ miles from family, in South Carolina - family is in Arkansas. The year is 1984.

It's a bright, beautiful day in September and after a long day of doing some near last minute shopping, preparations for the new baby sister, and hours waiting on Daddy to get back to land (he's out on the submarine, had been gone for about 6 months and was supposed to be in that day, ended up being delayed by a few hours) Mom decides to take her two toddlers home for an afternoon nap and to take a nap herself.

She gets her two blonde haired blue eyed angles in their beds in the room they share, checks to ensure they have actually settled down for their afternoon nap, then retires to the couch in the living room. If her darling angels should happen to get up from their nap before Mom gets up from hers she'll be able to hear them and also be easily found in case they need her.

*cue Jaws theme music*

The darling, angel faced toddlers decide that they're too excited to fully take a nap, lay there for a few minutes or so, then decide they want to go outside to go play, naptime is over for them! They go out of the bedroom, down the hall, through the kitchen, but what do they find, but their mother snoring soundly on the couch! The door is locked and upon disturbing the slumbering mama find that she's resistant to the pleas to go play outside. So these darling children look for something to occupy themselves with...they enter the forbidden bedroom. The room is bare outside of a few pieces of furniture for the new baby - the perfect room to play in.

After a small fraction of time has passed by it is discovered that the window is open! ahhh! Fresh air! AND??? An escape route. See, the slumber mama is in the other room and has not yet caught onto the fact that her sweet angels are even in this room - now is the PERFECT time to go play outside.

Being the awesome big sister that she is the eldest of the two children is able to reach & see out the window - green grass & yard toys are just on the other side - she pushes the screen out of the window, easy peasy!

Now, everyone knows that if you go first the younger siblings are always bound to tattle tale, so being the concientious big sister that she is, she gave her little brother a boost so that he too could go outside, seeing as he's not able to reach the window by himself just yet and there's no handy climbing apparatuses available. She lifts him up, pushes him up by his feet, and out he goes - KERPLUNK! Head first into the...remember we're in a trailer house...hitch of the trailer. Now it's the elder sister's turn to go outside...except she realizes a few moments later that she may be tall enough to reach & see out the window she's completely unable to actually climb out the window itself.

The big sister does what any noble sibling does when faced with such a catastrophe - she runs and tells Mom: DANIEL IS OUTSIDE!!! I WANNNA GO OUTSIDE! IT'S NOT FAIR!

This rouses the slumbering mama - she's up!!! SUCCESS!!! Outside we go. And I think that's likely the first time I really remember getting in what could be considered a "shitton" of trouble for helping out one of my siblings. Daniel ended up needing 62 stitches to close the gash in his head - 27 years or so later he still lives...

BUT I learned a VALUABLE lesson that day - Windows are not good substitutes for doors, especially if they're up off the ground.

((You REALLY don't wanna know how over the next few weeks his eyes also ended up in bandages because that same older sister thought she'd be helpful & give him a bath - with liquid laundry detergent while also helping Mom & Dad bring in the groceries...or how a few days after that, while not only was his head still bandaged, his eyes bandaged, and his hands basically taped & bandaged so he didn't tear off the other bandages, his sister helped him out the front door, resulting in him falling down the concrete steps, thus busting his nose & knee....HEY, we were in a hurry that day - Mom was in labor & Dad was finally home!!))

See, all that was PROOF that from an early age I was a VERY helpful big sister and despite all my great intentions I got into a LOT of trouble all because of my younger siblings.



Stick in the Fire Pit #2:
*Scene Set* A few years have gone by, Dad is no longer in the Navy, we're in the middle of building our first house. There are three children now, a fourth is on his way. Children are ages 5, 3, 2, & 6 months gestation. We're living at Grandma's house, just up the hill from where our house is being built by my Dad, my Godfather & some high school buddies of Dad's. Mom is working 40 hours a week at a night shift job, so we're left in the care of Grandma, her husband, and our Schizophrenic Bi-polar Aunt (before medications worked to actually HELP someone with schizophrenia/bi-polar live a normal life). Daniel & I were both in Head Start just down the road, by the airport.

It was a BEAUTIFUL spring day - my 5th birthday in fact. My last year at the Head Start, I was moving up to Kindergarten in the Fall! It was an EXCITING day - FINALLY 5! Like every 5 year old who is told she can do/have anything she wanted I completely believed all these adults, I trusted that when they said that they meant it. So of course, during recess reading hour, with the huge monkey bar thing that 20 some off kids could climb all on at the same time even, I knew that day was going to be the day I could climb up to the very top & sit in the lovely pockets created by the tarp that had been draped over it to discourage climbing & create shade underneath. I enlisted the company of some of my classmates, because really, who wants to hang out alone at the top of such an awesome device! We head up there.

First to the top wins! We (my two buddies & I) were almost halfway up, just to the edge of the tarp when the teachers caught sight of us and instructed us to get down RIGHT NOW! I obliged, I wasn't one for breaking rules, even if it was my birthday. I climbed down & slipped myself back into the group that was sitting, quietly, under the tarp, on the grass. Friend K & A continued the quest, because you know, first to the top wins! A few rungs later & another warning scold from the teacher Friend A comes back down, tearing a small rip in the tarp as she does so. Friend K continues...she's one to do this every day, she's not going to let a little bit of trouble stand in her way of winning this race to the top.

She makes it. Chooses the square she wishes to recline in, nothing the teachers can do about it until she's ready to come back down, they have 40 some off other preschoolers to keep in line and there's only 5 or 6 of them, total, and sits there in the hammock of the tarp.

If I were to guess I'd say these squares ((err, rectangles)) are roughly 2 foot by 18 inches. That day we got to tour a fire truck in the playground. See, the tarp finished ripping as she was laying in the square hammock...the top of this jungle gym/monkey bar thing was roughly 10 feet in the air...and there hung Friend K....by one knee and holding on by one hand. Forget any desire I EVER had of EVER even THINKING about attempting to beat anyone up that thing! The panic & screams & utter chaos just did me in. I learned something very valuable that day as well - I don't care for the limelight all that much and thankfully I had the good sense to listen to the teacher & get down from there or it could have been me...and I was a toothpick kid back then I don't think I would have been so lucky.

((My dad, since he was one of the main parent volunteers, took down the upper portion of that thing over the weekend. My punishment for being one of the ones who'd attempted that climb, besides being the daughter of the guy who tore down the most awesome playground toy ever, was I had to pick up all the nails I could find out of the yard around the house that the guys were done putting the shingles on.))

Stick in the Fire Pit #3 & #4:

*Stage set* We're a bit older now, Mom is no longer pregnant, I'm about 8 years old, Daniel is about 7, Samantha 6, Duke is 3. My mom has a younger half-brother who is only about 6 years older than me, so he was in that weird early teenager phase of life. He was into skate boards, had an awesome bike, the works! He even had a water bed! WAAAAAAYY COOOL! ((Have I ever mentioned that I was a COMPLETE tomboy when I was a kid? No? Ok, well, I'll mention that now, I was QUITE the tomboy growing up.)) Other useful tidbit for this story:
My parents were absolutely into skating, we were at the roller rink at least once a week - they met at the skating rink, they were AWESOME skaters, but by this time (mid-80s) roller skating was something old people did - you know, folks my parents' age (25 & 27 at the time) and I ABSOLUTELY SUCKED at roller skating. My toothpick, giraffe like, one day I'm going to be a basketball star, everyone knew it, legs just REFUSED to coordinate well enough to be able to operate rollerskates, so I spent most of my time on my butt and being ran over (stick #3).

I thought my Uncle S was the COOLEST person EVER. He had all these awesome things and he lived in town, which meant the road was paved & basically flat, as opposed to the dirt road hill we lived halfway down. He had a skateboard, which was the coolest of the coolest things EVER. It was a skateBOARD - absolutely totally different than individual rollerskates, where my feet would go three different directions, on a skateboard though, my feet would be together, on the same flat surface, with one occasionally even touching the ground, not under the power of the wheels. Despite MANY pairs of ripped jeans, knees, elbows, and the occasional face plant I was determined to conquer this cool thing. ((What the hell are these helmets, knee pans, & elbow pads that you're thinking of?!))

Ok, horrible thoughts about my parents not caring enough about our safety to ensure that their children, who owned neither bikes nor skateboards, and this was like 1990, parents, at least mine, hadn't started the whole hovering movement yet, and onto the reason why this warrants mention in my 'fire pit of reasons'....

It has already been established that I have giraffe legs. At this point in time I've not yet hit puberty, so they're still toothpick giraffe legs. I was 8 and stood 5'2" tall and weighed maybe a whole 60 pounds. By this time it is well documented & known that I have the grace of a newborn giraffe, on the side of a mountain, even if the surface is flat. I think it has also been established that I have an uncanny desire to help other folks and I rarely do anything all by myself. What you don't know yet is that directly across the street from my grandfather's house there is some construction going on. This construction is work to put in a rain runoff ditch for that part of town - basically a manmade concrete & railroad tie creek, roughly 5 feet deep.

Remember too that I am only about 8 years old...my uncle was 'keeping an eye on us' playing in the street, folks & grandparents are inside doing whatever adults do when they're only having to really entertain a 3 year old and the other 4 kids (ages 14, 8, 7, & 6) are outside, playing in the street, that is under construction, with no construction workers out there, because it's the weekend and we have a skateboard and a 10 speed bike.

Now, this is before 'extreme sports' was televised or even popular...more one of those things 'punk inner city kids' who were into things like drugs and causing trouble were into, not your typical suburban or country farm kids. So there's no reason to assume that because there are ramps, etc laying around from the construction going on that these kids would ever dream of even attempting such stunts. This is my testament that kids really don't have to be influenced by the television to think of things....

We constructed our own ramps & created dares to go with our obstacle courses. The bike is really too big for anyone to operate even remotely correctly except for the 14 year old uncle and he determines that it would be best that we (the younger kids) should use the skateboard. Since he lives right here he's practiced these jumps and such. I still haven't managed to figure out how to keep my butt or knees off the ground, but I'm POSITIVE I can stand on the board while going down a ramp into a 5 foot deep hole in the ground, it's really not that far.

I get the momentum up...things are going great. I hit the ramp. No, seriously, I hit the edge of the ramp, the board stops. I do not. Stupid inertia & gravity combination! But because I have such WONDERFUL control over what my feet & legs do I see the imminent fall & possible injuries coming towards me, so I pull a stunning move to get off the board in the same moment that it crashed. Then, in super slow motion, it might have taken me AT LEAST 15 minutes to make that fall, my foot gets tangled in one of the cinder blocks laying there that we had moved to help build our ramp. I am dangling there, foot in the block above, my head roughly a foot above the concrete floor of this new drainage ditch. After a bit of 'creative ingenuity' my uncle & siblings are able to get me back up to the street level. Nothing broken!

Lesson I learned that day: I can't do anything that entails wheels under my feet. My reasoning is that my legs are just too long, lanky, & just are unable to coordinate cooperation with the rest of my body to keep me upright. Even into my adult years now I am retaught this lesson, except I've not bothered with roller skates, blades, or skateboards...I can face plant to the ground by just walking across flat, clean surfaces while barefoot & sober.

So, this is installment number one in my series of fire-pitted reasons my giraffe legs & I just don't shouldn't leave the safety of the Earth. You can also read here about how even my bouncing blue eyed 3 year old has even jumped on the bandwagon of reconfirmation of my stand to stay, well, standing, on the ground.


I'm only up to age 8 in this installment. Age 10 & 11 are real winners, but I won't put them in this post. I'm sure your health & sanity thank me.

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Four Steps to Putting Away Laundry

Step #1 : Get little sister on your shoulders. Make sure she has a hanger of clothes between her teeth, so she can hold on to your head...


Step #2 : Stand & steady little sister on the shoulders....

Step #3 : Walk to the closet, closer, closer, closer....Hold steady. Little Sister gets the hanger on the bar. Declare Victory!!!!

Step #4 : Repeat until all closet clothes are off the bed & in the closet...


How do you get the laundry put away at your house?

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Tribute to my Father, on Father's Day

July 4, 1962 - March 26, 2007 .... The span of my Father's life....warning you'll cry, laugh, and bawl - or at least I have while typing this out.

He was born, and died, Donald Linn Pierson. He was the 3rd child of my grandparents, Alma Jean Lake (Granny)& Edwin Lee Pierson(PaPa), out of 5, being preceded in death by a younger sister who passed during birth, as well as his parents who respectively died in Jan 2002 and Dec 2002.

He was born in Storm Lake, Iowa, where he lived as a young child, before moving to Bentonville, Arkansas, where he met my mother. He joined the Navy in early 1981. Married my mother, in October of 1981...I was born 7 months later, in May 1982. My siblings followed suit in the years 1983, 1984, & 1987.

I don't remember a lot about my daddy from those days. I remember being completely enamored with him and truly lived up to being a "Daddy's Girl"...even to this day. I remember clearest the times after we moved into our "first, real" house, I was not quite 5, my mom was pregnant with my baby brother, and the house was still under construction, just down the hill from my grandmother, on my mother's side, in Rogers, Arkansas.

It has been incredibly difficult for me to write this blog post. In all honesty I started this particular post on July 3, 2009, I've come back to it a number of times, fully intending on finishing it and then publishing it. This is all the further I have gotten so far.

I loved my father. He was a great man, now I'm not so wrapped up in my opinion of him to not see his faults, but he did try. We never had the latest or greatest of anything; rarely did we even have anything that was new. We never had the money to go to fancy places like Disney or Six Flags; most of our vacations were taken only a few hours from home, often paired with a family reunion in Iowa, just north of Kansas City and we'd go to the amusement park there - Worlds of Fun to be exact. We'd spend weeks in a tent on the river down the mountain from Eureka Springs, Arkansas, just two hours from where we lived. I looked forward to those trips every year. I finally did have an opportunity, that I took, when I was 18 to go to DisneyLand - it wasn't what I thought it was cracked up to be. My folks weren't there, neither were my siblings, and frankly I felt like it sucked simply for those reasons. Later that summer I also went to Italy, Greece, the Philippines, India, New Zealand, and Australia - the sites were great, I wholly appreciated the experience, don't get me wrong, but I'd had a falling out with my folks not long before then and it sucked. My dad had always wanted to go to Australia and never got the opportunity.

My dad had wonderful stories he'd tell about his life growing up. One of my favorite ones was of when he and his brother found a pair of abandoned baby raccoons, took them home, and then raised them. He'd tell about how when they'd get ready to leave for school in the morning they'd climb on the roof of the house & then drop down on his & his brother's shoulders when they walked out the door to catch the bus. They said that the raccoons pleaded in such a way that'd make you think they didn't want them to go to school, they were lonely on school days & would cause trouble on their own. My Granny & Papa confirmed the stories, so I'm confident there's no father falsities there. Granny wouldn't allow the raccoons in the house due to the mess they'd create so they were basically wild, but tame.

I still get a giggle out of remembering a story he and my uncle told about the time they'd raced up a HUGE tree that they'd been forbidden from climbing...only for one of the branches to break under the weight of my father, causing him to go crashing down the tree towards the ground. The only thing that saved his neck then was mere feet from the ground a forked branch broke his fall, hanging him there by his knees. My uncle then raced down the tree, then doctored his scratches and scrapes up, in the barn, because Granny was home. I was roughly 10 years old when I heard that story. My dad & his brother were telling the story - so they were 30 & 33 years old - we were all sitting in Granny's living room and the look on her face said she was going to beat the fire out of both of them with a belt, right then and there. One for lying to her almost 20 years ago about all those scrapes & scratches, two for climbing that tree, repeatedly, by admission, after being forbidden, and my uncle was bound to get an extra beating for putting his younger brother in harm's way, since he should have known better, being the older sibling. The looks on my dad's & my uncle's faces at that particular moment also said that they knew they were in TROUBLE. It was like watching the faces of two young kids immediately upon realizing that they just told on themselves for doing something seriously wrong that they'd lied about - pride in bragging about the conquest, immediately followed by the horror of realizing that their mother was sitting right there, listening to them brag about their conquest. Nearly 15 years later I did the same thing with my mother, when recounting the details of a car wreck I'd had, when I was 16, that she never knew about until I was telling the story of it. I'm a lot like my father - it may take me a while to come clean, but I really can't keep my secrets or lies for too long....I often forget that I'd lied or kept something secret at some point and tell on myself.

My favorite thing about my father is he always insisted on us playing board & card games. At an early age I learned how to play games like Risk, Monopoly, Cribbage, Chess, and countless different card games. My dad wasn't the type of father though that 'let' his kids win. You had to beat him at his own games through practice (and sheer luck); I have his competitive edge when it comes to such. I'm quite the shark when it comes to each of these games, but I also suck at them. I never fully paid attention to some of the moves he'd play in chess, so I still haven't completely mastered how to put a person out in less than three moves, nor how to block that particular set of moves. But it was countless hours of fun. Absolutely NOTHING got in the way of playing games when he wanted to play; homework could wait until later, same thing for chores. But heaven forbid you didn't have your chores & homework done before dinner was served!

Every meal was to be ate at the dinner table, unless of course there was a show on that dad wanted to watch or we were watching a movie, together. We were rarely - to the point of almost never - allowed to go to friends' houses for sleepovers. We weren't allowed to go to friends' houses if their parents and my parents didn't get along. At the time I thought it to be wholly unfair - as a parent I find it to be a great idea - Mikeal has only spent the night at friends' houses where I know, trust, & love the parents of his friends - it helps me sleep easy those nights.

We, meaning Brian, the kids, and myself, just got back from our first 'family vacation' the other day. We went out to Gatlinburg, Tennessee. All I could think about was how my dad would have LOVED spending the week out there in a cabin in the woods - ok, truth be told he likely would have preferred a leaky tent - but surrounded by the mountains, varmints that'd knock over the trash cans - because apparently some city folks don't understand that there IS a reason the trash cans all had locking lids - the hiking through the woods, hanging out on the deck just talking, watching the sunset, the moonrise, and getting up early enough to watch the sun then rise through the trees.

The whole week we were there I could feel my daddy smiling, laughing occasionally, and just having a blast. I miss him.

I won't go in depth with all the details of the last few years of his life, but I will say this: PLEASE don't be a bullheaded man about seeing a doctor and getting your check-ups! My daddy wasn't yet 45 when he passed away. To say he was stubborn about seeing a doctor is a complete understatement. He had a massive heart attack and heat stroke when he was 32, there was evidence of him having a heart condition when he had his physicals for the Navy, but he passed the physical the second time around, so never looked further into it. He was in great health where his cholesterol, etc was concerned, wasn't overweight, nada, to look at him & his blood work you'd think he was in perfect health. After his heart attack all his tests came back clean...until my mom insisted that the doc put him under the stress test until it acted up. It took 3 hours of him being hooked up to machines, laying on his back, pedaling a stationary bike before they saw his heart hiccup, cutting off the blood supply to his brain, causing him to have what seemed to be a sudden burst of complete anger then a mild stroke, before his heart would restart and he go back to everything being normal. I do give credit to my dad for changing his diet - removing all caffeine from his diet, he was QUITE the AVID Mountain Dew & unsweetened tea drinker. He cut back on the type of manual labor he'd always done, to a job less physically demanding, etc. He had his first open heart surgery at age 40 to repair the defective valve. After the surgery he backslid on his caffeine free diet, feeling like he was 'cured' and really wanted to enjoy his Mountain Dew & caffeinated tea again. The surgery did leave his immune system a bit compromised for a little while. Three years later he had to have another open heart surgery. His health went quickly downhill after that. A man who never got sick, never had the flu, man colds, nothing, was losing weight at an alarming rate, had a chronic sore/raspy throat, and stomach issues, all the time. Almost a year of this went by before he agreed to see the doctor for it and mention these extra 'annoyances'. His doctor assumed it to be something related to the heart surgeries and sent him back to the cardiologist. The scans done by the cardiologist showed some severe abnormalities, they ended up decided to go with opening him up again...and that's when it was found. See, my dad had been a tobacco chewer since he was a teenager, anytime anyone would say something to him about it he'd defend his choice to chew tobacco by saying that if he's really poisoning anyone's body it's just his own, he's not poisoning folks with secondhand smoke, yada yada.

He'd quit the chewing tobacco before his first heart surgery and hadn't picked it back up, but between 20 years of chewing and refusing to get check-ups or seeing the doctor when he was sick he was screwed. When the cardiologist opened him up for his 4th and final heart surgery they found the cause of the abnormalities that showed on the scan - cancerous tumors, large ones. After a complete, thorough work-up, from head to toe, it was discovered that he had cancerous tumors from his mouth to his colon & every digestive organ in between. Later it was determined that he had a severely aggressive form of cancer that in combination with the repeated heart surgeries his body had become too weak to even attempt to fight it and the early warning signs of cancer were overlooked as being symptoms of his heart condition. Less than 3 weeks after telling me of the diagnosis I was given the news that he had passed away of a heart attack....I was really counting on him being around for at least another 6 months as I hadn't gotten to physically see him since I was newly pregnant with Mikeal, who was almost 5 at the time of his death. He never got to meet any of his grandchildren, yes, I'd send pictures & updates about Mikeal & my siblings & their kids, but he never did get to touch a single one of them. They never got to hear his stories, play games with him, nothing.

As I previously mentioned it's taken me almost two years to write out this post without becoming extremely angry over the details of the last decade of his life by rehashing them, maybe sometime in the future I'll be able to tell the whole story here, but not at this time. Those emotions are much too raw, even now, for me to even begin to attempt to tell, but I really needed this post to be posted, so that I can start moving forward.

I love you Daddy and if fate deems it to be so I look forward to seeing you again in the future. ♥ Happy Father's Day!!!

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Hiking Adventure of 2011

...at least so far into 2011...

We started off the day like any other Saturday - being lazy & sleeping in, all of us but Mikeal anyways, he was up early to get in some video game time since he was no longer grounded...

Then as afternoon rolled around I crawled out of bed and went straight to work on my Math Final - yay nearly done with this semester!! Just have an English final left and two other small assignments.

Brian crawled out of bed and enlisted Mikeal to assist him with getting some things picked up and the dishes done.

Then we decided we'd go out to the local state park to grill dinner and take a small hike - AWESOMENESS!

We grilled some burgers and hotdogs, ate until we were satisfied, cleaned up our mess and decided to hike a trail we've not been down yet.

You know, one of those trails your husband (Brian in this case) says is only a .5 mile trail (because the sign says .5 miles TO the trail)...so you think, ok, no problem, whatever, chances are great he'll get frustrated or tired of it before you do, so you're game. You, having prior hiking knowledge, are sure that the sign doesn't quite read the way he reads it to read, but you're enjoying the day with him and the kids, so why make a fuss?

You start off on the trail, it's roughly 4:30pm, and you head out...

You see some pretty cool things, like this stump, it's nice and peaceful, outside of the chatter of the kids...

A bit later you realize you have just walked a whole mile, in a circle, first UP the hill, then aroudn the hilltop, back DOWN the hill and are now back at the car...

OK...it is determined that apparently the first trail was not the right trail, so you head back to the trail head, to take the second option...

There's still plenty of daylight out, and this trail you're looking to go down is just a .5 mile trail...right?

The scenery is again beautiful, despite Spring just being around the corner...

...and there are squirrels EVERYWHERE!!!

And then we came to the end of that trail...a little over a mile later. It dead ended into the creek (well, there was a crossing bridge, but it was washed up on the shore on the other side from the floods last year) so we headed back to the fork of the trails...a mile worth of backtracking...
So backtracked to the fork in the trails and took option 3. I made them pose for a picture next to a tree, aren't they adorable!

Mikaila stopped being quite so keen on walking, so Brian ended up carrying her for a bit...
As the sun dips over the horizon, SURELY this is the right trail...only .5 miles to go to our destination, right?

And we come to another impasse, again our trail bridge was washed out, so we went through the campgrounds and stopped for a potty break since those were the ONLY bathrooms open at the park and I HAD TO GO! On our way back through the camp ground, to hike back through the woods in defeat we came across this lovely version of a bridge through the creek.
Can you see at the end of the rock bridge that small skinny log we have to walk across? Yea, me and my giraffe legs don't do such things stably...I made it though and we continued on to the trail...and YAY! We're now on the actual trail that we wanted to be on 1.5 hrs & 5 miles ago!!! So, theory is we only have .5 miles to go until we're at the site we want to see in the woods (the Ore Pit). And now that we know where we're at & where we're going, no big deal to get back to the car before dark, right?
Roughly another 2 miles later we happen upon what we assume to be what we're taking this trail to see...a giant hole in the ground, filled with muddy water...oh joy!
Now at this point our choice is to either continue on the only marked trail that we can clearly make out at this time or head back the way we came...we continue to press on, surely it's not far to the part of the trail that we know loops back around the hillside to the campgrounds, where we entered this trail, which happens to be .5 miles from where we parked the car, via the road...and there's still enough light to make that trip, right?
Another 2 miles down the trail and it's obvious that the trail we're on is not taking us back to where we had originally believed we'd be heading...and someone is getting just a wee bit worn out.
We continue to press on...and then we see it! Evidence of civilization!!! It is now mostly dark, roughly 7:30pm, the last rays of the sun have dipped over the horizon and the Super Moon is rising...We are at the back side of the park, the car is at the park entrance...we have about 2 miles of walking uphill to get to the campground and then another .5 miles of walking downhill from there to get to the car.
We finally made it back to the car and I snapped some awesome pictures of the Super Moon on our way home. It was a wonderful afternoon and evening out with the kids and Brian! Hoping we can make this a regular occurrence, even if we do get lost again. ☺♥

You'd think after a roughly 13 mile hike through the hills and woods that at least one of the kids would be asleep now, at 10:30pm....

Oh, did I happen to mention the fact that I was wearing my new Sketchers Shape-Up shoes...that is NOT recommended, ever, for hiking.

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