My Artwork

I do other thing.s besides being a wife and mom. One of my passions is digital art. Here's a quick sample of some of my older work:

Common Sense in Foster care

OK, I realize that the term "common sense" and "foster care simply have no business being located anywhere near each other. But I have some ideas about the system.

Cindy in her post about something a friend of hers wrote touches on this. Her friend, like most of us large adoptive family moms, had been through the CPS nightmare and stated that unless you had the money to hire a "big bully attorney" you had no chance to fight CPS. True. But that isn't necessarily what this blog post is about.

Twice CPS has threatened to take our kids for damage to the house done by those same kids, and the lack of money/time to fix those things. Flooring ripped up, holes in the walls, etc. If you're reading this, you know what I mean. This put me in a unique spot and had gotten me thinking.

If they had been able to remove my kids, the emotional damage done to them would have been extraordinary. So much so that any foster or future adoptive family would have had one H*LL of a time managing them while they grieved, and they would grieve forever. The future of these kids would have been changed from rosy to untenable for young fragile personalities, all of whom are bonded well, because in the past 20 years we only adopted infants with Down Syndrome or Spina Bifida. Oh, and a superpremie crack baby got in there too. Breaking that bond with us would have destroyed them.

How much better would it be if children were left in their home and round the clock supervision were provided in home? A person to just BE THERE, to help out and to make suggestions. To teach parenting, if that needed to be done.

The kids wouldn't have to leave the parents they love. They would be safe and their lives wouldn't be abruptly changed to live with strangers. Life would go on without damage to the children's psyches.

Now,I realize that some parents would STILL screw up and some kids would still be removed, but if it saved the largest part of threatened children, then it would be a success. I mean, if the supervising lady said, hey that kitchen isn't safe or healthy, please clean it up (with the implied thought 'I can take your kids if you don't') surely a parent who loved their children would do it.

You say, it's too expensive? Oh no it isn't. Foster care and all that entails is way more expensive. And then there are the psychiatric bills that will always go along with a child removed from his own home. This plan would do away with the residential treament often needed with damaged children. No foster care, fewer damaged children.

Now this in home round the clock services would only work if the children were also granted access to medicaid, and money would be there to hospitalize severely disturbed children in the home.

A good solution all around, I think. Kids with a future, versus kids with nothing but torment in their future.

School Nurses

So it's what, three weeks into the school year? Yesterday the county supervising school nurse was called in to look at Jay, who is 16 and has spina bifida and uses a wheelchair. He also has a vesicostomy, which is simply a hole directly into his bladder. No stoma, just a hole that serves as a release valve so that his urine doesn't back up into his kidneys.

He had loose stools and the teacher was concerned. So the county nurse told us she wanted us to take him to the UROLOGIST right away as he "might have a blockage."

Now if you're paying attention you'll see the stupidity here. Why on earth would I take the kid to a bladder and kidney doctor for loose stools?

So we asked if they wanted him taken home and they said no. HUH? They send kids home if they SNIFF.

And just now I get a call from the PHYSICAL THERAPIST wanting to know if we'd taken him to the urologist. I said no and why would I take a kid with loose stools to a urologist? She was snippy and said, well you have a nice day... And I see where this is going. Pretty soon the CPS people will be at my door.

My legal plan had better be in place by now...

(OK, for those who asked goto megamom's site and scroll down on the right and you'll see the link for the legal plan. It's cheap and provides you with a hotline to call when CPS is on your doorstep and get advice from am attorney who understands how these things work. Priceless)

The Innocense of Down Syndrome

When I came home from the rehab center where I was being starved to death, my 24 year old daughter Jennifer came to me and put her arms around me and said, "I'm sorry, Mom. I won't do it again."

We all know that young kids often blame themselves for things that happen in the family, but we forget that even older kids can feel responsible, especially if that person has intellectual disabilities.

Jenny is a tiny young woman whose birth parents were from Taiwan and has Down Syndrome and has been in our family since she left the hospital. She works hard at the Habilitation Center and brings home a paycheck high than her father's lately. (His hours have been cut back to like 6 hrs a week.) Brought home a $260 check for the past two weeks a couple days ago.

She's very competent in that she can make her own meals (and often lunch for the whole crew.) But she is innocent to the point where she will probably not be able to get a job in the community any time soon. She's never met a stranger, and her motto is "We Aim To Please." So she'd go with anyone.

But no matter how often I tell her she didn't do anything to cause me to have surgery, she still feels bad. It's not her fault I'm wearing the neck brace. Still every night she creeps into our room before she goes to sleep and comes up on the bed and puts her arms around me and says, "I'm sorry, Mom."

I'm blessed to have her as my daughter. But I sure wish I could clear her conscience.

Why we keep our kitchen locked

Nobody gets in our kitchen unless the are responsible enough to have a key Here's why:

This AM Jeremy broke into the den, which is open to the kitchen and also has a locked door with the same key. It's a hollow core door and certain individuals who do not rate a key have figured that if they punch a hole through the panel under the doorknob that they can get in by scootching their arm through.

So when my husband finally got wind of Jeremy in the kitchen he went in there and found that Jeremy had toasted a bagel and put butter on it, eaten most of a carton of chocolate ice cream and had three eggs laid out to take. When asked what he was gonna do with the eggs, he just said "Put them in my pocket." I think he thought they were hard boiled.

When asked where the rest of the ice cream went, Jeremy says he gave it to William. Nice of him, don't you think??

Consciousness is Beautiful

We take consciousness for granted until we lose it.

I did not do well after the spine surgery on Thursday. Perhaps it was the length of the surgery, I don’t know. Thursday is a blank, and although I thought I was doing well on Friday and Saturday, apparently I wasn’t. My husband will say, “Don’t you remember this?” and I draw a complete blank.

Anyhow, the decision was made (without me, but I trust my DH completely) to put me in a nursing home. [A rehabilitation center. She was having trouble walking and swallowing.] So I came here Saturday. They apparently changed my dressings yesterday, but I don’t remember that. Today I got up deciding I was at least going to be able to get in the wheelchair and go to the bathroom by myself, a task which I have completed.

Supposedly, I’ll have PT tomorrow. My goal is to get home ASAP.

Note to friends: Before anyone chooses a rehabilitation center for you, MAKE SURE IT HAS WI-FI !! [This place doesn't.]

(Typed by Amy’s Loverboy on a real [home] computer.) [He added the bracketed comments.]

Surgery Time-Only in a Large Family

Well, tomorrow is the dreaded day I have my surgery. It was funny this AM listening to my husband and my eldest daughter, Wendy, discussing how we were going to get ME to the hospital at 5:45 AM and get her to our house for child care (well none of the 9 at home are really children, but still need supervision.)

She's a DJ and will probably be up until like 4 AM so she'd be coming here with no sleep. So the discussion involved how to have someone here for the kids who has actually had some sleep, while getting me to the hospital while Dad was here to get Jay up and bathed and dressed (he has spina bifida) and then how to get Dad to the hospital so that we don't have two cars sitting there which would require complicated means to get both cars home.

We were talking about how Jon could get up early and drive me there, which we nixed, Or I could drive there myself and Dad could come down after Wendy got there, after getting some shuteye. Or since Justin has the day off, having Justin come over early to watch the kids until Wendy got there...

So complicated. Wendy said "I think we need an event planner." And I thought, only in a large adoptive family...

My computer is leaving today with my son Justin for a fix at Office Depot where Justin is assistant manager. They have a system where they have expert geeks at corporate plug into your computer and fix everything that's wrong with it, and there is a LOT that must be wrong with this thing. I"m a geek myself and I haven't been able to fix it. It takes literally 30 minutes to reboot and at least that long to open programs. Can't run a business that way.

I just figured I wasn't going to be up to using the thing for at least a few days so this was the perfect time to do it.

I know a couple of you have my phone number, so give a call tomorrow afternoon for an update. Wish me well, and say a little prayer for me. :)