New Year

It is time for resolutions. New Year Resolutions, that is. I have several that I would like to make.

1. The first and probably most common for women is I want to lose weight. I know that I can succeed with this one. I discovered a diet online last year and it was easy to follow and I lost 30 pounds in no time flat. I even kept the weight off for about a year without dieting. Or even watching what I ate. Then I started gaining weight again this past spring. I just did not care enough to go back on the diet. It was not overly important to me to worry about it with everything else that was going on. So, I resolve to start my diet with the new year and lose the extra baggage. (you know, the saddle bags, spare tires, thunder thighs and all that!)
2. I want to finally get my house unpacked and organized. I have been in my house since March of 2007. I never did get around to unpacking everything, much less organizing. I hereby resolve to finish unpacking and getting organized, along with purging what I no longer need or use. I will create to do lists for each room of my house and check off things as I complete them to help give myself a sense of accomplishment. That way I can also create a list specific to each room so I can feel like I am in control and aware of what needs done and what I simply want done. But I will feel accomplished each time I can check something off, and that in itself creates motivation.
3. I will continue to hound. I will use hounding to save money. I do not think that I will find it hard to keep this resolution at all!! Hounding is fun and addictive!
4. I will save money this year for retirement. I started an IRA a year or so ago and since the initial deposit, I have not added anything. I do have a retirement plan at work through my paycheck, so I have not been neglecting my future, just not saving as much as I would like.
5. I will save money this year for an emergency fund. I have never had one of these. This is a good year to start. I may not be able to save the recommended 3-6 months any time soon, but it will be a start.
6. I will pay off at least one credit card. I have a loan and 6 credit cards with maxed balances. I used them a lot for atty and court related costs, and for my travels thinking they would get paid off as soon as I got my son back. Of course he is not home yet, so now I still have the expense of travelling, the expense of the new legal battle that we are going to have in my efforts to bring my son home, and all the credit cards and loan pmts. I think I will have to find another job....Actually I know I will, I just have not had any luck finding someone to hire me with the understanding that my visits with my son will come before any job. There just is not a plethura of flexible jobs out there. Not to mention I live in an economically depressed area.
7. I will join my library. I will read all different kinds of books (no hardship, I already do), and I will also check out books to read to and with my son. Also no hardship as he likes to read and be read to as well.
8. I will add one more resolution. I unfortunately have absolutely no control over this one. I am not in charge of it, nor do I decide it. I will bring my son home. I have hired a new attorney and we have a new strategy. This resolution will however be up to the skill of my attorney and the scruples of the judge to actually follow the law this time.

I am interested to see if I keep my resolutions. I know that most resolutions are dropped almost before the ink on the page dries. I resolve to be different this year.

A Bond Between a Mother and a Son

Bear with me. This title may seem like it has nothing to do with my post, but hang in there and you will see the relevance.

I tried to have a little fun teasing my son this past week. He was again reminding me what he had asked for for christmas. I was visiting this weekend and I got lots of reminders. And questions of if we were going to go and buy him some presents. I told him no of course. I was not buying any presents for him in front of him. We did go shopping and he had a lot of fun. I left him with my mom for a few minutes to pick out a present for me. Mom said he was very proud and impressed with his decisions. When he was done picking for me he wanted to go look at toys while my mom went to pay.

And so it began, can I have this and this and this. No, No, NO! It is only a few days until christmas. My mom and I discussed this behavior after dropping my son off at his dad's. We have come to the conclusion that he does this because his dad puts him up to it. Not always in a fashion that points directly to him. More of a sneaky, I will pull one over on them type of thing. My ex will take my son to walmart, take him to the toy section and let him look at the toys. Now, there is nothing wrong with that. I do the same thing, because he likes to look at the toys and dream, "if I had lots of money". The problem begins when my son asks for something. Instead of saying no and being done with it, my ex says well sure you can have it if you buy it. Or he will say something along the lines of he does not get child support, so he can't afford it. Like my son should even be in a discussion about whether or not my ex gets child support. Or lastly, he tells my son, sure you can have it, just tell your mom to get it for you. Your mom should buy that for you. Then I take my son to walmart because he wants to go and "look". I end up with some sort of no I am not buying that for you today discussion with my son, because his dad said he should ask me. Not very nice for my little boy who thought that he would get a toy. Here is where this phenomenon gets interesting. This does not pass on to other stores. Since my ex only goes to walmart and lowe's, I can take my son to kmart and avoid the battles altogether. So, we now just go to kmart. It is as if my son does not realize that he could ask at other stores. I know that he wants "stuff" from kmart because he will point out toys that are "neat" or stuff he just wants. But he does not beg for them. I tell him we are just looking and that's what he does.

Anyway, we ended up at walmart because none of the other stores had the present they (my mom and my son) were looking for and we ended up looking in the toys section while mom paid. We did make it out without any purchases. After all, it is almost christmas. Oh, but the "I can't wait" was fun. It was too long and too many days according to my son. I can still remember the agony of waiting those last few days.

After mom was done paying he wanted to take my mom to see the games that he wanted for the nintendo ds. He was trying really hard to figure the best way to get them all. I could buy this game, Grammy could buy this one, Auntie could get this one, Uncle could get this one, and maybe Papa (grandpa) could get this one. And could he get one from his cousins. We then explained that since his cousins belonged to Auntie and Uncle, they would not be buying him an expensive game, and since Auntie and Uncle are married, they will not be buying separate games. He can get one from their whole family. And Grammy had already bought him some presents. We then discovered that he thought Santa would bring the ds and not bring any games. We quickly told him that Santa does not bring a game system and nothing to play on it. Well, that made him feel much better. So Santa brings the ds and a game, mom will get a game and Papa will get him a game, or two since his will be coming from GameStop.

My son asked me last night if I had his presents yet. I told him no I forgot I was supposed to get you anything. Did we talk about that, did you say you wanted presents. I thought you did not want any presents this year. He informed me that he knew better, he knew that I would have presents for him. I asked him how he knew that and the answer he gave me touched my heart.
He said to me that he knew I would bring him presents because I always do what I say for him, and I don't let him down, and I don't give up on him. He knows he can trust me.
All that from an eight year old. I really wished right then that I could give him a great big squeezy hug. Instead we finished talking and I finished shopping when we were done.

All of this behavior and especially the conversations makes me feel as if I have an unbreakable bond with my son. I figure I must be doing something right. After nearly two years of limited visits, monitored phone calls, and constant hearing of negative name calling talk about me, my son still loves me and trusts me totally. I know that his father said more than once before he got custody that if he had custody it would be the opposite of when I had him. My son would like him and want to stay with him and not like me and not want to go with me. I look at our situation and see that no matter how much he wants it not to be true, my son still loves me and wants to come home. And home is with mom, not dad. Even after almost two years, I am still Home. I am the rock and the safety. Most importantly, I am the love. I know that some folks may not approve of how I raised my son, and that is part of why I lost him, but how many of those that spoke ill of me could have said the same were they in this situation? How many people in general can say that they know their children have complete faith and trust in them? Even though I have not fixed this problem, my son knows that eventually I will. He still has a faith that mom will make it all right. Because he is my son, and my heart, I will make it all right. That is part of the unbreakable bond between a mom and her child.

I would like to add a small disclaimer. I do know families that can say their children trust them completely. I know several that cannot, but I do know of tight strong families. My sister is one of them. I also have the feeling based on the posts from the pound, and their blogs, moms there could also say it. (Right Jmo, even when your child grows up and leaves home, they know where the heart is!)

Christmas Time!

Here we are at the time of year when children (and adults) expect presents. In light of my financial strain of travelling, I told my son he could pick three presents that would be really important to him.

First thing he tells me is he wants to have another gameboy advance and the cord to connect the old one and the new one together. Then he wants the pokemon game Leaf Green. I say okay simply because I intend to go to game stop and get them used.

Second he tells me he wants an mp3 player that will play the radio. I am not sure about this one, but I say okay thinking I can probably get a used one somewhere.

Then, he tells me his last choice. I couldn't help it, I had to laugh. He wants a laptop with internet access and games on it. I did have to tell him to pick something different as I cannot afford that. We talked about the different kinds of games that you can play with a dvd player and perhaps that would be okay. He does agree that some of the games sound fun. Especially the pokemon game (do you see a theme with the games going on??). So I relay this info to my family members that want to get my son a little something for christmas.

Then I ask my son what he wants to ask Santa for. He starts to tell me that maybe Santa can bring the laptop. I do some quick thinking and tell him even if Santa brings him a laptop, I cannot afford the games and internet access, so it would be useless. Perhaps he would like to think about it and decide what else he would like. Then he goes back to his dad's and I have not been able to really talk to him too much, and have not had any opportunity to influence the Santa wish list.

Well, last night my son told me that he had decided. I wait with bated breath as he leads up to it. He wants a nintendo ds. With the pokemon game diamond and pearl. We talk about if he gets that from Santa does he really need the additional gameboy. The way he says his response of yes tells me he thinks that was a dumb question. I try to talk him out of one or the other, but to no avail. I then tell him that pokemon diamond and pearl are two separate games. He argues with me at first until I tell him that I can see it in a sale ad and they are two different games. That's when he tells me that he will ask Santa for the ds and one of the games and my sister can just buy the other one. I laugh and ask him if he thinks his aunt really wants to buy it for him. Yes he tells me. So I did end up calling my sister to see if she is up for buying it.

Now on Wednesday I am going to go to Meijer to get the nintendo ds because they have a deal right now where you can get a $10 gift card when you buy a ds. So the gift card will go to my sister so she can buy the extra game. Talk about an overload of electronics at christmas.

I would normally have told my son no way for all of these electronic type presents or just let him pick one. However, since he is stuck at his dad's I have decided to go ahead and get them. Last year for christmas he asked Santa to come home, so I had to pick randomly to get something from Santa. Then I find out that no one at his dad's or grandma's bothered to get him anything from Santa. In fact if I understood him correctly, his dad did not get him anything and his grandma did not get him anything that he asked for. She just got random presents. My son was really bothered by the "fact that Santa did not bring him a present" at his dad's so that I had to come up with the story that Santa knew that was not his "real home" and so he brought the present to me to give to him. I am sure that this year will be the same, so I am making sure to get him what he asks for from Santa. Thank goodness for my food stockpile so I do not have to worry about groceries while I pay for the nintendo ds and game.

I also have to find a bell. It has to be a special bell. Just like in the Polar Express, if you can hear the bell, you still believe. I have gotten him a bell from Santa for the last three years and will have to find a bell that is just right. Because of course we can still hear it.

I am also going to dig out my little christmas tree and some decorations because my son wants to have a tree. Since we will be at the hotel, my plan is to put it together and decorate it, then just wrap it up in a big bag and transport it all put up. One less thing to worry about trying to get done in the few hours that we have. We can concentrate on the christmas shopping with my mom and playing when we get done with that. I am looking forward to the weekend. I will update when I get back about the trip. Maybe we will even see Santa while we are down there!

"Hound Friends"

This post has nothing to do with My Story. Well actually it does a little....

I would like to thank my hound friends. A lot, and bunches and even more thanks.

Back in May I think is when I found the MSN Grocery Challenge site. I stopped in hoping to get some good ideas for saving money whether on groceries or HBA, it did not matter I just needed to save some money. The gas prices were making it hard to even buy food for me to eat let alone HBA, cat food and litter and the outside critters. I was having a hard time even paying the power and water bill so they would not shut me off. I had already stopped feeding the outside critters and was getting worried on how to feed myself something besides beans and rice and still feed my inside cats. I obviously would not be able to save on gas because that is what I need to get to my son. It was costing somewhere in the vicinity of $450-$550 a trip, every other weekend, and some occasional holidays. That is about three-quarters of my paycheck. That did not leave alot to pay for neccessities, like required car insurance, power, water, food and my cell phone.

Now some people would say that a cell phone is not neccessary, but in my case it is. That is how I talk to my son. I could drive over to my mom's house and call, but when they don't answer and I have to wait for a call back, I would have to sit there and wait all evening until my son's father decided that my little man could call back. That would make it hard to get things done at home, not to mention would get really old sitting at my mom's house every evening, and the gas most likely would cost more than the cell phone. I also have my dad on my cell plan (with the family plan) because he has several health issues. I want to be able to check on him (he can't afford a home phone) and make sure he is okay. His car is not in the greatest of shape either and I do not want him to get stranded and have to walk, as he has heart troubles and the doctor told him not to do anything that would raise his heart rate too much. He needs to be mostly sedentary. I want him to be able to call for help if he needs it.

So back to the "pound"... as the grocery challenge thread is called. I just lurked a little to start with as I suspect most folks do, trying to get ideas. I did not do anywhere near as well as the girls on the pound did but I was learning. I do not have the double q's (as coupons are called over there) available at grocery stores like some gals do over there either. I have however noticed a big difference in what I was spending on food and HBA. I know have the beginnings of a stockpile. I learned how to do this effectively at the pound. I learned the sales cycles from the pound. I learned the benefits of stacking a rock bottom sale price with a Q. And I learned the difference between phantom sales and rock bottom prices at the pound. I also learned how to utilize CVS and more recently Walgreens to get free or close to free items. I used to look at those stores and their prices and would walk back out. Now I have learned from those great Hounds how to deal and finagle to get the most for my money. I now have HBA stockpiles to use for christmas gifts-and the best part is most of it was free!

Back in August when I got my bad news about the appeal, I was crushed. I posted on the pound that due to my bad news I was going to step out of the pound for a while and not post anymore. I did not have the heart to post or follow the deals. This is where my real thanks come in. I have never met any of the hounds in person; I have never talked to them on the phone; Most of the hounds have blogs but no pics of themselves, so I don't even know what most of the hounds look like. But when I gave a summary of what happened and why I was not planning on posting, they supported me. (I think I am going to make myself cry right now!!!) I got encouragement, I got you-tube links with songs and motivational clips (Thanks Jmo!!!)

In short, I got a response of friends. I did not give up on the pound and am super thankful for that. Those hounds have been there for me. I just hope that they have no need for me to be there for them. We are all experiencing hard times right now with loss of family and friends, loss of jobs, family moving in due to loss of jobs and homes. I hope that I have passed on some encouraging words to my hound friends in these recent times with so much bad news. And mostly I wish that good news and luck would find its way to all my hound friends. They could all use some right now with the economy the way it is, and all the bad/sad news that seems to be going around.

Hound Friends-I thank you very much, and I wish you all the best, and I wish for all the best to happen soon. You all have such caring and giving hearts, you deserve the best out of life.

Thank you for all you have done and helped me with!

Just a regular old weekend

I had my weekend visit with my son. It went fairly well, no major hitches. We stayed at a hotel again. I really don't like all the dragging in and out but what's a girl to do? Especially when your little boy is looking up at you with those eyes saying how much better that is....

I did try to pack better. I had one tub that had all of our food, and everything we would need to hold it, heat it and eat it. I had one tub with all of the toys in it. I had one smallish bag with my clothes and some clothes for my son. Then I brought a bag for a magazine, my coupons and the dvd player. We are not going to take the tv/vcr into the room anymore as it is just too much to drag in. Little man did not ask for it either. And of course our pillows. I cannot sleep without my own pillow.

We went christmas shopping on Saturday. We had a good time picking out something for all of the family. I told him one present for each person which is my mom and dad, and my sis, her husband and their two kids. And of course he had to pick out something for the cats. He always wants to get something for the cats. So far he has picked really well and the cats like the toys. Which means they totally destroy it and tear it into shreds! And I am okay with that as it means that my shoes and shoestrings are left alone, at least sometimes.

Anyway the visit. We had fun and played cars, watched the movie Open Season, which is a really funny movie, and played a couple of board and card games. I took him home on Saturday night and went back to the hotel to wait for Sunday morning. Sunday morning I pick him up and we go back to the hotel. We had another day of lots of fun. The only thing we did different at the hotel was he took a bath to play with his bath toys. He has this ship that has removeable pieces so that you can put it together however you want and it will break down to make about five different ships. It also came with a diver figure, a captain figure, an oyster (although we call it the clam), and the best part according to my son-the shark. The shark actually has a fin that you depress and it opens his mouth so you can shove the diver, captain and clam in and it falls down to the shark stomach. The stomach opens so you can dig them back out when you want to. He will play in the water with the shark and ship set until I make him get out. So I guess that makes it worth the dragging all the stuff in just to watch him really enjoy the shark eating everything.

After we had to check out of the hotel, we went to walmart because little man told me he wanted to pick out some ideas for us to get him for christmas. I said okay simply because I did not have any idea of what we should go do. Instead of picking out toys he heads straight to the electronics section and starts telling me how he wishes he could have the Nintendo DS, and some of the games. Then he starts playing the different games they have out for folks to "test drive". I don't know what game station it was, but he found a game where you raced a motorcycle, monster truck, or regular car or truck. When you crash or run the boost to long it actually shows the explosion. And if you get too close to the edge and slide off, it shows you falling down into the ravine. He thought that was really funny and played the game for a long time. It was fun just watching his facial expressions when he crashed or actually finished the race. Finally I told him that we were there for him to pick out toys which of course means that he will find something he can't live without, can he please please please have it now. No you cannot have it now, these are christmas ideas. It makes him mad but I tell him he will get over it. When we are just about out of time, I tell little man it is time to go so we can grab a happy meal for him. He eats his happy meal and watches a movie on the way back to his dad's, all the while telling me how much he misses me and how much he loves me and how much he wants to come home. It just makes me want to cry, but I cannot do that cuz it will make little man cry and I certainly don't want to do that. I will just give him lots of hugs and kisses and wait for the next time. And keep hoping and wishing that he will get to come home soon so I can hug and kiss him every day. Tuck him in every day. Just see him every day. What a wonderful time that will be.

I know that I do not post too much about deals really, but I have to mention to anyone reading this that there is a $500 walmart gift card give away over at deal seeking mom. Get over there and try for your chance. Just think how wonderful that would be to win and just in time for christmas!

Here is my Mother Letter

Dear Mother,

As I write this I hope you are enjoying your little ones' smile, I wish I had done so more.
As I write this I hope you are enjoying your little ones' laugh, I wish I had done so more.
As I write this I hope you are enjoying your little ones' giggle, chatter, frown, cry, scream and tantrum. I wish I had done so more.

As I write this letter, I no longer have my son with me. I no longer get to wake him up each morning, I no longer get to tuck him in at night.
As I write this letter, I no longer have my son to nag to hurry up and get ready for school, finish your homework, get in the tub and get ready for bed.
As I write this letter, I no longer have my son give a kiss to when he falls and hurts his knee, or is just walking by within reach to give a hug. My son is no longer in reach.

As I contemplated writing this letter, I saw many moms claiming their children were sucking the life out of them. These mothers had lost their patience in dealing with their little ones,
and I tell them be thankful for every minute, no matter what that minute contains. These mothers were ignoring their children's cry for help, for a tantrum, for just a little attention. I tell them,
do not ignore, enjoy every minute. You never know when it will be your last.

Please enjoy every possible second, you never know when it will be your last.

As I write this letter my heart goes out to all mothers who have lost their children, in whatever manner it may be. Perhaps you lost your child before birth, perhaps you lost an infant. Perhaps
you lost your child, not in death, but in kidnapping, or child custody or moving out. In whatever manner you have lost your child my heart bleeds with you. For whatever reason, if you have lost
your child from reach, you have not, and will never, lose your child from your heart. Your child is a part of you, Mother, and will always be. Cherish what memories you have, Mother. They will be
with you for the rest of your life. Enjoy every memory you have. I know that I will.

Love,
Michelle

The Mother Letter

I like to check in with my hound friends and their blogs as often as I can. I am not able to check in daily, but hopefully I can stop by at least once a week. This week as I stopped by Living Easy I saw that she had a post about The Mother Letter Project. I followed her links, and found this wonderful idea. I will post my letter with all the other letters. Thanks, Lisa for leading me to a terrific idea and something that I can participate in that will mean something wonderful to someone else and that can hopefully heal my heart some as I read stories from other women whose hearts have been touched by this thing we call motherhood. I will post my letter here when I am finished with it.

Thanksgiving Visit

Well, I had my Thanksgiving visit with my son this past weekend. My mom went with me. I still have not found a camper/motor home yet, so I planned to stay in my van again. I knew that it would be a bit crowded with all three of us in there, but we would just make it work. I packed everything we would need and tried hard to leave any extras home. We of course were taking food for a proper Thanskgiving meal. I had a whole chicken that I hounded from Meijer for just a couple of dollars, potatoes purchased on sale for only 99 cents, carrots purchased on sale for only 79 cents. That would be the bulk of our meal as it could be prepared in the nesco cooker all together with minimal fuss. My mom made some homemade chicken and noodles to go with our chicken that we would heat in the crock pot. We also took some things like applesauce, canned green beans (did you know that you could get the little cans and they have the pop tops so no can opener is needed!?!), and of course some puumpkin pie with spray whip which is really fun for my son who loves to spray it on his pie and in his mouth! So we got the cooler loaded and we were off.

It got to be time for me to call my son and as we are talking I ask how was school. He tells me he was sick again. He did not go. He is trying to tell me what he has but in the end just puts his dad on the phone. Now it really is not funny that my son is sick, but my conversation with his dad is really amusing. I say he tells me he is sick. He says yeah its just a virus, I took him to the doctor today and he said that it is just a virus. I ask what kind of virus. He tells me I don't remember what he called it, just a .....viral virus. A "viral virus" I ask. Yes is the answer, he does not remember what it is called but it is highly contagious and they gave him and antibiotic. An antibiotic for a virus? Yep they gave him this medicine. I ask is it a respiratory infection, and he tells me he does not know what the doctor called it. Then he asks me if I have heat in my van. At this point what I really wanted to do was say something that would probably end up starting a fight and him not allowing my son to have the phone back so we could talk. I wanted to say Nope, no heat in the van it is really fun to drive around in Illinois in the winter time with no heat whatsoever, and even more fun to sleep in it with no heat at all. And wouldn't that be great to drive around in with my son who has a "viral virus" with an antibiotic? What kind of fool are you? But in the interest of being able to talk to my son for our phone call I merely say, Well yes I have heat. Good because the doctor said that "son" should not be out in the cold air. That is fine I say, it is cold out and we did not plan on playing outside anyway. So my son gets back on the phone and we get to finish our conversation. What did you do with your day off I ask. I went shopping with grandma. You went shopping, like just to pick up your medicine and a few groceries. Noooo, we went shopping, like to kmart and walmart and sears. We went christmas shopping. Now I am unsure if our conversations are still being recorded so I let this go and changed the subject. I do not want to get my son in trouble again for telling what is going on at his dad's house. I figure I will have all day to ask tomorrow. I get off the phone and ask my mom if she is up for staying in a hotel as I did not want to stay in the van if my son was sick. Mom was totally up for it as she was dreading staying in the van all weekend anyway. So we either have to stop for me to get a visa gift card to use to pay so I can write a check at walmart to pay for the hotel which of course does not take checks, or my mom has to pay and I will pay her back. She says she will pay and I can give her the money when we get home.

We pick my son up the next morning, and he is sick, with some sort of respiratory "viral virus", and his antibiotic? It's a cough syrup. We go to the hotel which my son is really excited about. He like to go to the hotels, cuz he likes jumping back and forth across the beds. And hiding behind one bed on one side and us hiding on the other side and we fight aliens. The creepy outer space kinds, not the illegal human kinds! We also gave him a vapor bath with the johnson's vapor bath. The whole room smelled like menthol! He seemed fine after that, he said he could breathe, he blew his nose and got a lot out, and hardly coughed at all. I gave him some Tylenol just to see if it helped him. He said it did not, but I could tell a difference in his behavior after it would have kicked in. He was a little more pleasant.
But dinner did not go as planned to start with. We got the chicken out of the cooler and opened it up, and it was smelly and no good(so much for my hounded chicken!). So my mom made a quick (read-not so quick, but my mom cannot go in get what she needs and get out) trip to the store. She brought back all sorts of things, like triscuits, wheat thins, cheese ball, two loaves of bread, a bag of apples and a whole chicken. Except the chicken she bought was much larger than the one I had bought. So the potatoes did not fit into the roaster with the chicken, but I was at least able to squash the carrots in. We did get the food cooked and we ate, but not all at the same time because we had been snacking all morning and the food did not get done at the same time. But it was all tasty. And my son ate really well. Which is always a concern as his diet at his dad's is dismal at best. From what my son tells me the only veggies he gets are if he eats a can of veggie soup or the tomato sauce on pizza. And of course french fries, if they can still be considered a veggie after deep frying. So we try to take home made veggie soup, canned veggies, can fruit, applesauce cups, apples and bananas, and even yogurt. I usually sneak in a lot of different types of veggies in the soup so he gets a good variety every other weekend. At least he gets some is my attitude right now. It is better than none. When it was time to take him back he was sad but not distraught and was really looking forward to the next day. So we go back to the hotel room, pick up the toys, take showers and go to bed. We pick him up the next day and proceed to have another day of alien fighting, chicken and noodle and apple eating, and playing board games. We watch a movie, or rather we put a movie in the dvd player and it plays in the background while we play. We "waller" (as my son says) on the bed, and of course he jumps on the beds. Then it was time to pack up. So we packed and loaded the van and headed for the walmart parking lot. We went there so my son would not think he had to play outside, which he would have wanted to do if we had gone to the park. I figured we would just hang out and watch him play his gameboy Pokemon game. Nope he wanted to play more board games. So we did. Course we did not play any games according to the rules and ended up using the cards to play an entirely different game, but we had fun. It is always sad to leave, but my son did not cry this time, which really makes it hard for me to leave him. He did keep telling me that he wanted to come home. I tell him I know and that I am still working on it. I will not give up trying until he gets home. Then I also call him a couple of hours after I drop him off to make sure that he is okay and to tell him I love him. He was pretty much okay as he was cleaning his room, "but this sure is hard work" he tells me. He is coughing again which I assume is from dust, but seems fine other wise. He does get in his "want to go home" comment. Which he tries to get in fairly frequently. I am sad that I do not get Thanksgiving with him on the holiday, but that is not in the order this year. I will just take everything I do get and be thankful everyday that he still loves me and I still love him.

How do you do it?

How do you do it?
I just don't know how you do it.
How do you do this?
How do you make that trip so often?
How, how, how.

I hear that an awful lot. I always have the same answer. I do this because I have to. I really do not have any choice. Sure I could not go. But is that really an option? This is my son here. I will do whatever needs be done to see him, and try to bring him home. If that means getting another job, ok. If that means no time or money for any extras and eating beans for dinner every nite, then that is what I would do. Thankfully for me (and my co-workers) I have not been reduced to beans every night.
Often folks tell me that they could not do this. I am so strong for being able to stand this. They don't know how I get through this. How do I get up and function every day? The truth is I don't. What choice do I have though? I have trouble sleeping, I have nightmares when I do get to sleep. I find that I am irritable. I have been told a couple of times by the gals that I work with that I am being crabby. ( I am just glad that I work with people who are not afraid to tell me I am being grouchy. Then I can try to adjust my attitude and not take things out on them.) I am often short tempered with my family. I do not attend any family functions because it hurts too much. I used to go to my sister's house with my mom and we would have dinner all of us girls. My sister's husband works on second and she has two little girls. I used to want to take my mom or my sister and her girls with me when I went shopping. Now I only take someone when I am going to one of the grocery stores that are about 40 minutes away. That way the cost of gas is offset by the savings that all of us receive. I have tried to go on a couple of family outings, but I do not have as much fun as I used to. I try to avoid family get-togethers. I feel like something is missing. And it is. My heart and soul are missing. My son is missing.

I have talked briefly to one of the pastors at the church that my sister belongs to and I rent a house from. They are willing to listen, but do not feel that they are qualified to help me in any way. This is beyond what they are trained to deal with. I cannot go to "traditional" therapy because that would be like waving a red flag in the air that I am "not mentally stable" to my ex and his attorney. Now mind you I would be getting therapy for the stress this is causing me and how to help my son deal with his stress and unhappiness.
I cannot talk to support groups because there are none. I do not fit traditional support groups because my child did not die and he is not missing. He is lost, but not in the sense of the support group. You cannot find support groups for this because of the "symptoms" of the diagnosis of MSBP. According to the "symptoms" if I talk about this I am seeking attention and must have this MSBP. If I do not seek help, then I must have it because I won't talk about it. So I have decided that there is no point in keeping quiet.
That is where this blog comes in. I get to vent out all of my feelings and start getting the awareness out there. This can happen to any mom out there. I get to use this blog to type out whatever I am feeling at the time. If I am frustrated and want to repeat myself 10 times over something that my ex said or did to my son or to me, then I can. No one tells me they are tired of hearing it, there's nothing we can do, or try to change the subject. If I put it on here, You can just skip over it. :) And that is okay. I know that there are not lots of people out there reading this and that is okay. It makes me feel better just putting it out there. In this very unhappy time of my life, I can at least get some satisfaction through this blog.

I've been tagged!

I've been tagged! Lisa over at Living Easy has tagged me. Now 7 random things about me......





1. I am an animal lover, I would take in every animal that comes in my yard and every animal that someone dropped off if I could afford the care they needed.


2. I can't live without my cell phone, I take it with me everywhere I go!


3. I can live without cable-I do not have cable or satellite and have not for several years. I don't even get the "free" local channels with an antenna!


4. I love to read, I will read almost anything at all.


5. I hate to wash dishes. If I were not concerned about the environment, I would use disposable dishes.


6. I don't like beef or fish. I will eat chicken and some pork and occasionally will eat turkey but it is not my favorite either.


7. I love my diet pepsi. I drink loads every day.





This took longer than I thought.....





Now for seven more tags! I think I will have to go with the following:





livingdaytodaywithsuneday.blogspot.com She has also had difficulties and is helping her daughter. And camping! Look at the great pics!


http://4hatsandfrugal.blogspot.com/ I am sure she has been tagged already and will not play again because she is busy (read her blog and you'l see why), but I wanted to include her because I respect her and her abilities as a mom and wife.


http://chi-annie.blogspot.com/ I like to check in and see what yummy recipe she has up, and what kind of awesome deals she has at the stores.


http://frugalsuz.blogspot.com/ I could not pull off my cvs deals without her! I know she gives credit to others for the deals, but I find her site the easiest to read and understand!





That is all I can come up with as I do not read too many blogs and Lisa covered the rest that I read!

RULES: Now you list 7 random things about yourself and tag seven other blogs. I did not list seven, and if you don't want to, then don't. I don't think it matters at all! :) I like to make up my own rules anyway....

Visits

I do get to visit my son and I cherish every single second of these visits. I get to have a daily phone call now. I enjoy whatever time I have on the phone that my son is actually paying attention to me. I often get interrupted in my conversation because my ex decides now is the time he has to ask a specific question. It cannot possibly wait until my son is done talking to me. The super important things like did he get his laundry picked up. Isn't that earth shaking and an absolute necessary thing to ask right now? I will have to deal with all of that when we go back to court I guess.

We do have lots of fun on our visits. We have gone swimming, water sliding, hiking, shopping, cooking out, treasure hunts, video games, watch t.v., even gone to a local pumpkin patch a couple of times. We started out by going to a hotel and checking in early Saturday morning after I picked him up. We of course had to unload the van and take everything in. Then unpack the cooler into the fridge and put stuff away. We would then play all day. We would go swimming or climb the hill in the back of the hotel, play video games, play in the rain and splash in the puddles (that was really fun and obviously wet!). We just found all sorts of ways to have fun. We also brought my nesco cooker so we could cook food. We even had a Thanksgiving dinner at the hotel. What a feast that we had. My son loved helping us do all the cooking. It was sure strange though cooking everything in a nesco cooker or a slow cooker, but boy was it tasty. All the more enjoyable because I was with my son and my mom. When it was nice out, we cooked out on the grill that is out by the pool area at the hotel. My son really had fun with that as well. Then on Sunday, we would have to pack everything up and start loading the van about 2-3 hours before I had to take him back (to his dad's-not "home" though). It really was stressful and it kinda felt like the visit was over even though we had time left. Usually we went to the park and fed the ducks and geese or went to grab a bite to eat and then play on the park playground.

One visit we found out the campground down there has a water slide! We totally had to go and check it out! It was pretty expensive but it was really fun. My son really had a good time with it. I had to go on the slide with him because he did not want to go under the water in the pool at the end, but it was fun for me too!!! Then we drove around to check out the campgrounds. I talked to my mom and we decided to give camping a try. Now mind you I have no camping equipment...I am not really sure why I thought it would be a good idea, just knew it would be a huge difference in price. I was right. It was about 1/4 of the cost of the night in the hotel. And we could come as early as we liked on Saturday and stay as long as we liked on Sunday. Now we can get there and put stuff out before we get my son and don't have to pick anything up until right before it is time to go back. That really helped the visits seem longer than they had. I really felt like I had all day instead of a few hours in the middle of the day.

I have a full size van. The seat in the very back lays down into a bed. The two seats in the middle swivel around or come completely out. There is really nice carpet with a thick padding on the floor of the van as well. We have tried out many different ways of doing the weekend in the van. I think that we have found a winning combination now of how to have things arranged to allow maximum space and enough seats for all of us. We bought a cheapo gazeebo to put up and allow some protection from sun and rain. We bought tarps to lay on the ground with an old sleeping bag so we can lounge outside on the ground and play games or watch t.v. TV?!?! Of course I have t.v. I have a combo t.v. and vcr and a portable dvd player so we can watch any movies and plug in video games to play. I strap our bikes on so we can ride bikes around the park. We can play tennis or basketball, or we can lay around and just veg out. We have been having campfires now that it is not 95 degrees and my son has enjoyed cooking hotdogs over the fire. Recently we decided to let the fire do all of our cooking. We just wrap the food in foil lay it in the fire ring, light a fire and pretty soon- lunch! All sorts of things can be cooked that way, even pork chops!

We bring fans when it is hot, and I have a little space heater to plug in when it starts getting cold at night. I found out that we did not need a ton of camping gear. My son doesn't care about that anyway. He just wants to have fun and have someone to give him some positive attention. We have plenty of that to give him. We have lots of hugs and "I love you's" to fit in during our visits. Since I do not get to tuck him in at night, I make sure to give plenty to store up for the days I am not with him.

I hope to find a small motorhome, preferably with a generator, before it gets to cold out and we cannot camp in the van anymore. I have not found anything yet, but that is okay. I will find one when the time is right. I firmly believe that fate has a hand in all our lives. So when I am meant to find a camper, all the things will be right and it will just fall into place. Now if only it was time for my son to come home.

Where I am now.

Well, as I said, my son has not been home since March 4, 2007. That day will forever be etched in my memory. Much of the rest of what has happened has centered around the courts and their decisions. I will not spend much time on that part, until all of this is settled. I will say that as a parent my rights have been sorely violated. I had my son taken from me by my ex and the courts with no proof. Only a preponderance of evidence. Which in many cases simply means someone makes a claim and swears it is the truth. That makes it a preponderance. Isn't that nice? Makes one wonder what the purpose of courts and law is for. Why bother to have them if you are going to stomp all over someone's rights cuz someone else thinks you should?



The day that my son left, he was near tears. I can still see him sitting in the backseat of the car. He looked up at me with trusting eyes when I told him it would only be two weeks and he would be home. I would be waiting for him when they drove back. I called my son every night for 12 days. I called on the 12th day and told my son the wait was almost over, it was just a couple more days and we would be meeting again and then driving home.



I called on the 13th day and was told I could not talk to my son. In fact, I was also not to come and get him on Sunday. I could not have him back. Now mind you, it was around 7 pm on a Friday night. There was no way for me to get ahold of my atty, no way for him to find out what my ex was talking about even if I called him at home. The courthouse of course was closed. My ex said he would fax me the pages telling me I could not have my son back. Of course I have no fax machine, but my mom has one at work. We gave him that number. Oh yeah, he won't fax anything until tomorrow. I can just wait. So at this point I am near tears and just want to talk to my little boy to make sure he is okay. Nope. I can only talk when my ex allows. And he gets to monitor the phone call. He actually records them, I find out later. Which last time I checked in the United States, it is illegal to record two other individuals on the phone without the permission of the ones on the phone. Did not stop him. I spend the whole night crying. I knew something like this would happen one day. He told soon after I left him he would take my son and one day I would see. I can still hear the threat. Which is now obviously not a threat, but a reality.



This begins the next phase of verbal and emotional abuse I have to endure from this man. I have decided this is why women do not leave. Why should they? There is no one to protect them. If they stay, at least there is no chance of having the children taken and given back to the very man that abused all of them. I now know why women hide it and pretend the abuse does not exist. It saves their lives (most times) and some of their sanity. If I had stayed, I would have been abused, but would have been able to protect my child. Now he is in the hands of the man (I use that term loosely) who is very cabable of abuse and also very good at hiding it. He should be so proud of himself, he is able to manipulate a child. Isn't that something to be proud of? He is sneakier than a 6 year old. He can terrify a child. That is sure something to be proud of. Why we should all be so lucky as to be able to make a child afraid. Isn't that something that we should all do to our children? Isn't that called complete control over your child and making them obedient? That is how my ex looks at it. My son is obedient.

He is not obedient. My son consistantly tells me he got into trouble again. He got grounded again. He had to go to his room and stay on his bed all evening and night. He could not get up for anything, and had to get permission when his dad finally came back inside the house to even go to the bathroom. He had gone to bed without supper because he was grounded to his room and on his bed. Some of the groundings went on for weeks at a time. As far as I am aware the grounding to the bed for the evening and night only happened one night at a time. But all the rest of them, like grounding from playing outside, bike riding, t.v., video games, toys, outside toys, some of those went on for up to four weeks at a time. When asking my son what he was grounded for, he does not always even know why. Other times it has been because he told a teacher he wanted to go home; he told his dad he wanted to go home; he argued with his dad when he said something mean about me and my son defended me; he argued with his dad when my ex told my son I hurt him. In my humble opinion, this all is about trying to manipulate the child in to not saying what he wants and trying to make him believe that I hurt him. He also tells my son that he knows everyone and no matter where we go or what we do, he sees us. He repeatedly tells my son he is taking me back to court (when he actually is not supposed to talk about any of that anyway). My ex scares my son into not doing some of the things we like to do on our visits because he is afraid I will get into trouble with the courts - because his dad can see everything we do. I tell my son not to worry about it and there is nothing we can do until it goes to court and I will take care of it. It is not for him to worry about. This does not stop him from worrying though. The stress and worry my son has is present at every visit. I have to spend time doing "damage control" on every visit. I have to reassure him that I am not mad nor am I hurt that he laughed at a joke his dad made, at my expense of course. I have to reassure him that anything his dad says does not matter to me. I do not care what he calls me behind my back. (Of course he never says any of this to my face the coward) He can say whatever he likes. He does not matter to me. Only my son matters to me. I tell my son to do what he needs to do to not get into trouble with his dad. If that means laughing at a joke so he does not get grounded, then laugh. It does not hurt my feelings.

And the best part is I cannot call child protective services, because they will not investigate as I well know from past experience. And mostly because this type of "child rearing" is considered acceptable there. Where I come from it is called abuse. This is real abuse, not taking you child to the doctor, taking them for therapy, giving them doctor prescribed medicine. Advocating for your child is apperantly abuse there, while actual child abuse is just raising them. This is part of what is wrong with families today. Obviously there are many reasons we have problems in our families, but if advocating for you child and standing up for him/her is wrong, and abusing them is okay, there is no hope for our society.

However, there are wonderful people out there and they are advocates for families. I am going to be one of them. I will continue my journey to bring my son home. If only I can find the money. That is what a portion of all of this is about. I did not have enough money to fight the way my ex did. I will find a way. Just as I will find a way to get my story out there. I want to help protect the mothers and children from this witchhunt. Someone has to. Why not me?

The Next step

The Threats.





That is how I think of them. With capital letters. It is very scary to hear your child say they wish someone was dead. Even more scary when that someone is a parent. We all heard/said the "I hate you" line growing up. Usually as teens, occasionally as pre-teens. But when your first grader tells you he wishes his dad was dead and when he goes back to see him he is going to kill him, well, kinda scary. I took him to his regularly scheduled therapy session for his social skills with the nitwit therapist and she said she did not think it was anything to worry about. Nothing to worry about?! How do you figure? She just said that it was no problem. Even though he told how and when he was going to do this she said no worries! He even said why sort of. He wanted his dad dead cuz he would go to hell because he was bad and when he (my son) died he would go to heaven and he would never have to see his dad again. She said just let it go for now and let's see what happens next. At this point I wasn't willing to let it go. The next day he continued to talk about it. He was not ranting, he was just stating what he was going to do. Then he said he would kill himself so he could go to heaven now and would not have to go see his dad again. He was six. What six year old knows what all of this means and is able to put together death and never seeing someone again. I of course explained that this also meant that he could not see me again either if he was dead. (I did not want to get into semantics about killing one's self as being a sin and going to hell, after all he did not have a total grasp on death.) He just said that we would be able to see each other just not his dad. So, I called a group called SASS, and they come to your house and assess the situation to see if the child is in immediate danger and if they have any recommendations. They did not feel the child was in danger at the time with me as I did not have a shotgun which is what he said he would use. In fact I had no guns so none of his "theories" would work. They did feel he needed another visit with the therapist. Again she says nothing to worry about. It is all me that is having a problem....ME?!? I am not the six yr old making threats. I took the SASS referral to a facility that does mental health evaluations. They did feel it was something to worry about. They referred my son to a psychiatrist.





All of this takes place over a period of a couple of months and there was one visit in the meantime with my son going to his father's. This is what the nitwit therapist is using saying my son will not do anything because he had his chance and did not take it. What? So he did not do it yet so there must not be a problem?





My son gets his appointment with the psychiatrist who talks with both of us, then talks to me, then talks to my son. He then calls me back in and sends my son out to the receptionist again. He calls Child Protective Service. They will not investigate because there are no visible marks on the child and he has not actually followed through on the threat to his dad. So I guess that means that until you kill someone or attempt to kill them, there is no help; Threatening is allowed. This is all insane. The psychiatrist then decided that the only course of action is to admit my son to a psych ward. I say I need to think about that. After all, he is only six and that would be really scary to be away like that, for both of us.





I am near tears at this time. I call my mom and she comes over. We call SASS again. I do not want to admit my son. The caseworker comes in and tries to talk to my son, who of course has had enough and will not cooperate. Finally we give him a hairbrush (I think) and tell him he is onstage and would he answer questions now? Yes he will. She feels that my son is safe with me but does have worries about him going back to his dad's. She calls the mental health facility and they state that the child is not in immediate danger and will not take him. She calls the psychiatrist and he states that if I do not admit my son as per his orders, then he will call DCFS on me for medical neglect. She tells me this and now I am really scared. I do not want to admit my son to a psych ward. All of this (I hope) is a cry for help for someone to listen to him. Why does he think his dad should die. Why does he think his dad is mean, what is going on to make him think that? No one asked these questions. Or at least no one asked them and tried to make an actual effort to get my son to say. He was not very forthcoming with answers and everyone just let it go.





We did reach a compromise. Instead of admitting my son full time, he could go for outpatient therapy. He would go Monday-Friday for parial days and recieve therapy from several different people. The solution here? Tell this little boy that threatening to kill someone is mean and he should not say it. I still do not know why he made the threats. They did not ask according to the people that would actually talk to me. Then they tell me they want to call his father and gather information from him. I am reluctant. After all, if a child is being hurt by someone, you don't call them and say, hey this kid is ratting you out. She insisted that she would not tell him anything. She pestered me until I gave the number to her. She lied. She told him what was going on and that my son made threats, and she wanted to talk to him. Isn't that nice. Let's tell the man that was doing who knows what to my child all about the accusations he (my son) was making so he has a chance to come up with a good defense. When the time comes to end the two week session of daily visits, they ask me for an evaluation of their assessment and how they dealt with the situation. I told them they did not do anything except let his dad, the very person my son threatened to kill know that my son was trying to tell what was going on and that telling my son not to say does not mean that he won't do it. Now we just won't know what is going on in his head. They seemed shocked that I said these things, but if I do not help my son, who will.

My son goes back to school for a week or two before his next visit with his dad. He (my son) is very adamant that he does not want to go. I thought about telling his dad that he did not want to go, could we skip this one, but knew from past experience that he did not care what my son wanted, it was all about him (the dad). His dad would no sooner let my son miss a visit my son did not want than fly to the moon. So, I took him to meet halfway with all my trepidations, I watched him fight and argue about going, I told him he would be able to come home in two weeks. That was not too terribly long. It would be over before he knew it. I would call every day if he wanted me to. He did want me to.

This was in March of 2007. I have never brought my son home again.

The Jouney Continues

Autism.

Just hearing it makes a mom's heart go racing. Fortunately for me, my son is not "autistic".

After the visit with the nuerologist we made the appointment with the doctor that he referred us to. This one has a title of pediatric development and behavioral doctor, or some such thing. This doctor was extremely informative, very friendly, and most importantly was able to have a conversation with my son. Who wonder of wonders was not hateful to him. Actually, he bordered on chatty, which was rather unusual for him. Not always or for long periods of time, but cooperative. For once...

We come prepared with the forms that were filled out by relatives and teachers. Once he reviewed them, he had a whole other series of questions for me and my son. He observed my son in the room and talked with him. We had a couple of visits of this that each lasted for quite some time, certainly not the usual 10 minutes and we're outta there type of thing. As much as two hours. Which by the way is a really long time to sit in a doctor's office, for kids as well as adults. Finally the doctor is ready to give an aswer. It is not autism in the true sense of the word. He says it is something called Asperger's Syndrome. Say that again?! Asperger's. Oh yeah, and the reason he is so difficult is he has something called Oppositional Defiant disorder. So he's crabby and it's not something I did? Hooray! I thought I was doing something wrong. So the social difficulties are not my fault either? Hooray again! Not that I want my son to have any problems, it is just a relief to know I was not a complete failure at being a mom. I mean, my son has had me in tears before with his attitude and I thought it was something I was or wasn't doing. Now how do we fix it? Is it like the acid reflux, we just give a pill? (Kinda sad when even as adults we think that there is a pill for everything.) No, no pills, but we can help him.

As hard as it has been with me with his mood swings and irritability, of course it was even worse for my son. Who did not know why he felt the way he did. Or why the kids did not want to play with him, or why the kids were mean to him. Why was everything so hard for him. You know those questions you really can't answer as an adult to the satisfaction of a child.

The doctor recommends social therapy. Says social therapy will teach my son social skills, which he is seriously lacking. It should teach him how to interact with others, to figure out what they mean, learn how to make and take a joke. Learn how to be "normal", just like the other kids. Learn how to play with kids. Learn how to play. It takes a little while to find a therapist on the insurance that I had. There was not really a lot of options for therapy with the insurance we had. We ended up going to the local childrens services facility. We were assigned a social worker who I was not sure I liked but since we did not have any other options went with her anyway. I think this social worker lived in another world. She was trying to teach my son social skills that would have worked in the 50's perhaps. Or maybe in Mr. Roger's neighborhood. But after a few weeks, my son said he thought he liked her. He actually talked to her some. She still to me seemed as if she was missing a few important points, but if my son liked her, okee-dokee. I did not think she helped a whole lot, as she kept her head in Mr. Roger's neighborhood, but my son did learn to adapt some. They did discuss issues that my son felt he was having in school, things the kids "did" to him, and how he could have reacted differently and what the other child's response would have then been. I also talked to his teacher in kindergarten about encouraging him to join the other kids in play and she was more than helpful with it. She said that sometimes though he would ask the kids to play what he was playing with and when they said no they were already playing something, he took it as a personal attack that they did not want to play with him. The teacher was more than willing to help keep an eye on him and talk to him when that happened. I do believe just the teacher helping is what made improvement with his social skills. The therapist just was not up to par in my book. After a while my son started saying he did not want to go back to the social worker/therapist. No reason, just don't want to go. I don't like her anymore. No reason, just don't.

By this time he is in first grade and we are having all sorts of problems with the teacher. She is brand new and has strange ideas of what 6 year olds are capable of. Like writing 50 sentances in one evening. Yes, I said 50. Now I agreed that my son was in the wrong that day, but thought that was excessive. I made him write some, but not all. After all, this was a private school and the tuition I paid is what pays her salary. She works for me, and if I think 50 is too many then I am the parent and what I say goes. The response was that I was undermining her authority. Of course, this was not the first time I "removed" a punishment that I thought was too harsh for small children. With 6 year olds, you make them have a time out from recess or no recess, send them to the office to have their parents called. That would sure be embarassing. Or don't let them have the free time in class. You don't make them sit at the front office for an "inservice" at a desk all day like you would older children, or make them write 50 sentances in one evening. Now, I know that some of this is the Aspergers and some is the ODD (oppositional defiant disorder). You have to have very set rules and plans for the day for someone like my child. When things don't progress in the day like he thinks they should, or like yesterday did, it is just too much to handle. Then he tends to get out of control. He gets rather anxious and upset. And because my son who used to love school now hates it, I decide perhaps I need to start going to the school to see what the problem is. I start going on my lunch hour. This coincided with the time he was at recess. I did go when he was in kindergarten, but was made extremely welcome by the teacher. This teacher for first grade, not so welcoming. I would watch him interact with the kids, sometimes playing along with all of them. Sometimes talked to the teachers and parents out on the playground watching the kids if my son was standing in the time out area to see what his problem was. My concern was how can I find out what is going on if I don't go and see for myself. Am I supposed to take the word of a 5-6 year old child who doesn't have a good understanding of social rules and just jump to conclusions, or go and see? I would prefer to go and see. I do not believe that my son lied to me, just did not see things the way everyone else would. I would like to note that other parents go to the school and give time, check on their kids, or just hang out. It seems it was only a problem with me because I put some of the blame on the teacher. I actually now work with another mom with children at this school and she went all day everyday for two weeks to see what was going on when her son's grades fell. No one said anything to her. But she was not trying to make any complaints against a teacher.

I felt like I had a lot on my plate with everything that was going on in the therapy and at the school. My son made some progress only to fall back a lot. I was not sure if this was normal or not. The therapist just was not overly intelligent in my book. And I was receiving a lot of resistance from the teacher and principal at the school. All I wanted was to help my son and keep him from having such a hard time. Isn't that what all parents want to do? Smooth out some of the bumps in front of their children? I just did not want my son to be so unhappy. And at end of 2006 all hell broke loose. This is when the threats began.........

The Journey to Discovery

Now the journey to find out what is wrong with my little boy. This new pediatrician is an elderly gentleman and just seems full of confidence that we will discover why my boy keeps getting sick. First the food diary. Did not help find any answers but was interesting to see in black and white exactly what he ate every day. Next we tried an enzyme. I no longer remember what it was called, just remember that the doc suggested it since my son was puking up actual pieces of food. Thought maybe he did not have enough of the enzyme in the stomach to digest the food and it was occasionally coming up. We tried this for a while to no avail either.



And as if this was not enough to try to work through, my son's doc notices that my son is not really verbal yet. Have you ever heard of Autism? he asks me. I had in the general sense of "kids banging there heads on the walls or crib rails, flapping thier arms" sort of way. Oh NO my son is NOT autistic. Thankfully he let it drop and focused again on the episodes. So he sends my son to a (let me see if I can spell this properly!) pediatric gastroenterologist. (say that fast three times in a row.) This doctor is concerned by the length of the episodes. Says most people throw up once or twice and then are done not several times in a row, for hours at a time. He decides my son needs to have some sort of digestion test, a colonoscopy and an endoscopy. I did not even know what an endoscopy was. He told me in layman's terms that they would stick a scope in both ends to see what they could find. (Different ones of course, not the same one twice! of course hehe) The digestion test was first since it was painless. Basically I take him to the xray dept of the hospital, they feed him a special breakfast. I joke that it was radioactive, but it was treated so the techs could see it in the digestive tract. All my son had to do was eat and then stand still for an xray shot. The only thing they found was that his food digested a little slower than what was usual, but not abnormally slow. All was okay on this front. Next the scary tests. We scheduled the scopes. My son could not eat for two days prior, only clear liquids. Man and I thought he was crabby before. Try putting a child that seems to not understand what you tell him on a liquid diet and tell him he can't eat. Just have some more liquid when all he wants is food. We made it through the two days. Now is the day of the tests. I am terrified. He could have cancer; He could have a reaction to the anesthetic; He could not wake up; He could die on the table; I was a basket case. Good thing my mom was there. Plus I had not eaten anything solid for two days either. I felt bad because my little one could not eat, so neither did I. I look back now and think that I probably should have eaten so when the tests were going on, I was not so light headed and could have been a little bit clearer thinking. Well we know what they say about hindsight....



Anyway, the tests. The results were given immediatley. They took pictures with the scopes, how neat is that, and were able to tell right away what was wrong. Here is a picture of his intestines-we were looking for polyps (sp?) and anything else strange. It all looked fine. Then here is a picture of his esophogus. Look at these tracks. This is from acid reflux. My response- kids can have acid reflux? Yes they can, actually kids can be born with it.



I can't even begin to describe how glad I was that it was acid reflux, not a death sentance, yes I know dramatic, but I was scared. Now I knew why he was crabby, his throat hurt all the time. And his stomach hurt all the time. The doctor prescribed Prevacid. He did not have cancer- I was elated.



Of course none of this was as easy as it sounds. All together this took about two years, with many trips to the doctor, many different trials including a gluten free diet, and lots and lots of episodes of vomiting and diarrhea and a trip or two to the emergency room over it. I was just so glad of a diagnosis and something to treat it with.



In the meantime, with all of the "explosion episodes" going on, my doctor grows increasingly concered over my son's strange behaviors. He took an unusually long time to start talking. He collects strange things, like "strings". By strings I mean anything long: string, cords, bungee cords, rope, chain, straps, belts, you get the idea? He had to carry them around with him everywhere he went, including into the bathroom at bathtime. Strange indeed. I figured just a kid thing. I did notice however that he did not play well with others. This started at his daycare, playing beside, but not with. Ignoring the other kids, not cooperating when he did try to play with them. I then enrolled him in preschool thinking that he needed more structure in his daytime routine. He still had some issues. By this time he is extremely verbal. We call him the little professor because of the way he speaks using big words, almost always correct grammer, and not ever joking around. Very, Very serious. I just chalked it up to all kids are different. Some are just always serious, some always playful, just all different. The doctor tells me that he thinks my son's IQ is probably somewhere up in the 120-125 range. Which of course doesn't mean anything to me. My son is smart, my son is cute, my son is "perfect". Isn't that what all parents think? No, he says, not all kids are smart or cute, but this one is smart. Then comes the awful word of Autism again. He gives me a form that is to be filled out by all the folks involved in his daily care. By now he is in Kindergarten. The teacher fills out a form, I do, my mom does. We take these to the doctor and he now refers me to a pediatric neurologist. I can't help but think at this point hasn't my son gone through enough. Little did I know the worst was yet to come for my baby ( I use this term loosely as he at this point 5.) We drive over to the neurologist who of course is about 45 minutes away, not one in my town to go to. He gives me lots of questions and "examines" my son's behaviors while at this office visit. He asks my son questions, and since he is so verbal is able to answer anything the doctor asks. BUT, he is very hateful in all of his responses. The doctor leaves the room for a few minutes and I remember asking my son why he was being hateful. It was just because the doctor was asking too many questions in my son's opinion, he was busy playing with his strings and the doctor was bothering him. I tell him to be nice whether he wants to or not. The doctor comes back. His determination: Autism. He gives me a referral to a doctor who works with kids with delays and disabilities, in the same office at least. I am devastated. I am envisioning a life with a child with major problems and can't get along in society. Mind you his problems to this point have been relatively mild, just failure to develop socially, and the super serious attitude. And the ever present irritability.



I would like to mention at this time in my son's life, his father is adament that my son does not display any strange behavior, even though everyone, including the doctors, has seen it. He also was adamant for many months that my son never threw up when he was down there. Now that the diagnosis for acid reflux was out there and my son was very verbal and could tell me each time he threw up, his father did admit that "he has thrown up a few times, I guess."



After the prevacid was started, I think that my son only threw up a couple of times, when he had a stomach virus. Not more than once or twice a year. No more diarrhea like he had before either. What a relief to all of us.

Now I was going to have to deal with Autism and whatever that meant.....

The Beginning

When my son was two years old, he began having episodes of vomiting and diarrhea. Not daily, not even weekly. Just once or twice a month. This was obviously of concern to me as he did not have a history of this. Even as an infant he rarely spit up. I nursed him exclusively for several months and I can only remember him spitting up a few times. Once of course was on my sister when I was home for a visit. She told me that she was rather grossed out by the though that the little cutie just upchucked her sister's breastmilk all over her shoulder. She said that formula would have been bad enough, but breastmilk was just too much! We just wiped it off and decided it was better than formula though as it would wash out and not stain her shirt like formula would have. Plus it was not so stinky. Anyway, he was not a puker. Then this puking started. We aren't talking throw up once and be done with it, we are talking throw up that was so acidic that it burned your nostrils if you were too close to it. Imagine what my poor little boy's throat felt like. He would vomit several times in a row, stop for a short while only for it to start again. We would do this for several hours. We went through a lot of towels trying to catch it so it would not get all over the mattresses. Finally he would stop throwing up and could fall to sleep for a while. Oh, but we're not done yet! Then began the diarrhea. For most of the rest of the day, acidic smelling diarrhea. Makes me wonder what his poor little bum felt like, if it burned coming out like it smelled like it should. The first couple of times really scared me. Oh, hell, who am I kidding, all the times really scared me. I wanted to know what was wrong with my baby. So, I took him to the doctor. Of course she wanted to know what he had to eat in the past few days. Here is where the interesting part comes in. I did not know. This all started the first time my two year old baby had to go to his dad's house for a week. I did not know anything as my son did not talk except in a few one or two word sentances. Mostly pointed to what he wanted. He was not really very verbal yet. And of course his father did not tell me anything. I did not know what or if he ate, when or how much he slept, if he played, nothing. I could not tell her. So she did a stool sample to make sure it was not a parasite or anything like that. Said to follow the "BRAT" diet. Which we did. And a couple of days later, physically, it was like it never happened. However, my little boy was never the same. He became angry, sullen, got into trouble at the sitter's house, and was irratable at home. Since he was not really verbal enough to talk about it, I went to the doctor again. I tried to explain the huge change in behavior, noted by everyone involved in his day-to-day life, not just me. She said not to worry. Too bad, I am worried, could he be sick and just not able to tell me what is wrong? No, there is nothing wrong, I am just over-reacting. Soon, this is followed by not eating well, and still all the crabby-pants behavior. I do not remember now if he threw up again before he went to his father's for another visit, but I do know that he got sick again when he got back. So, back to the doctor. Could something he ate at his dad's be making him sick, like an allergy or something. This time she did decide to run some tests. She ordered some blood work and stool sample tests. I do not know what they were looking for, just remember the gut wrenching feeling when we had to hold down my baby boy to draw blood. If you have ever had to sit there and hold your child while someone sticks a needle in their arm for drawing blood and listen to your baby cry, you know the feeling I refer to. It is awful. We got the test results back. Nothing. Why then does my little boy keep having these "explosion" episodes? Why is he so irritable? No one had any answers. I finally went to a pediatrician. The previous doctor was a family doctor and perhaps, I felt, not up to date with all things pediatric. This new pediatrician did not for once doubt my story, which was a refreshing change from the previous doctor. He recommended trying several things for these "episodes". First being a food diary to see if we could find the culprit that way. Now why did the first doctor not recommend that? Super idea, so we tried it. And many other things.....And thus began the journey to discovery.......

My Story Part II

I recently wrote to my hound friend, SunEday, that if only I could get my son home, I was going to go public with my story so that other women in my situation would know that they are not alone, and hopefully create enough of a stir to stop this abuse in its tracks. What I planned on doing if only I could get my son home was to start some kind of campaign to stop MSBP from being used in court in the US. I wanted to have consequenses for the actions of folks who think it is okay to throw this term around and wreck lives. I want there to be laws against allowing this "syndrome" from being used in court. In the UK, this "syndrome" has been discredited and any cases where children were taken and motheres accused are being brought back and reviewed. Why is it still allowed in the good ole US of A? Other countries are also starting to question this "diagnosis". Why not the US? Don't we have rights to be innocent until proven guilty? I have since decided upon learning that I will not be bringing my son home, that I will do this anyway. I do not want to change the world. I just want to protect other mothers and thier children. This should not have happened to me and I want to help prevent it from happening to others. Someone needs to put aside thier fear of being labeled a child abuser and stop this madness. I will stand up, and I will not be afraid for myself.

I will, however be afraid for my son. I will worry about his acid reflux, his fears, and the abuse he receives at the hands of the courts, his dad, and the whole system. It is not only my life being wrecked by being accused, it is also my son's life. He was coasting along in life living with me, then one day is told he can never go home. How is that okay for someone to decide? How is that okay for anyone to toss this "syndrome" out there about someone falsely? How can there be no consequence for people to make these accusations with no proof, cause someome (almost always the mother in the case of MSBP) to lose thier child, and expect that all will be okay? Does the one who makes the accusation get to say to themselves I did not hurt anyone by saying this? Does the one who makes the accusation get to pretend to the world that they had the child's best interest at heart? If the accuser had the child's best interest at heart, why in this case was the Dept of Children and Family Services not called? Is that not the protocal for turning someone in for child abuse? Of course the accuser in this case did not call DCFS. I had not actually done anything wrong. DCFS can't help take my child away and give custody to my ex if they don't find any abuse. At the risk of sounding paranoid, the original accuser in my case had reason to slander me. I was protecting my son's rights at school. I would go to the school any time my son complained about a problem that did not get resolved. I would talk to the teacher or the principal. I would go to the playground at recess where he said other children bullied him. I would defend his rights as a person to not be a victim of bullies and an unrealistic teacher. I did make complaints against the teacher. That is my right as a parent. If I feel she is not doing her job, it is my responsibility to protect my child. So the principal of the school saw a way to get back at me. Tell my ex that I am crazy. She makes it all up. The problems at school, the acid reflux, the oppositional defiant disorder, and the Asperger's syndrome. Never mind that I had medical records showing the diagnoses that my son received, from a real doctor, not from me; never mind that my son was referred by his pediatrician to see these doctors who diagnosed him. Let's not discuss that part. Let's pretend they don't exist and tell the dad the mom is crazy, that'll get her out of my school. Let's also pretend that we don't know that this poor little boy is in therapy for threatening to kill his dad, with the details of how and when he will do it. Let's get him out of this school and into the hands of the very man this little boy wants to kill. Because in this little boy's mind, if his dad is dead, his dad will go to hell, and then he never has to see him again. "cuz when I die, I will go to heaven, and so will my family (notice he did not include his father in the family category) and dad will be in hell, so I never have to see him again." Gosh, let me think for like a nanosecond of why that scared me! What five year old even has that much of a concept of heaven and hell and thinks about his and others mortality? I don't even know of any 10 year olds who think like that. Maybe some teenagers and certainly adults, but a five year old? That is a problem. But how dare me seek help for my child. There must be something wrong with me. Not my child or the situation that made him think that his dad's death was the answer to anything.

And that is where this downward spiral began....

My Story Part I

I am going to share my tale so that others may not have to suffer at the hands of "experts". I am not a writer, just a mom with a heartbreaking circumstance. I will attempt to put my story into words coherently. I know that I am not alone in this agony. This is happening all over the world. Fortunately for mothers in other parts of the world, this witchhunt will soon come to an end. Roy Meadows is being discredited.



Who is Roy Meadows, you ask. Well, he is the man that decided that he was the one to make the decision of whether moms were abusing their children with a syndrome called Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy. There are many websites online to get information on this so-called syndrome, and when a mother sees the list of "symptoms", one will realize why I call this a witchhunt. Basically what it amounts to is any mom "over involved" or "under involved", chooses to get educated on why thier child is having difficulties that no one can diagnose or wants to do further testing (doctors), or just knows that something is wrong that the doctors have yet to determine, you could have this "syndrome". Now comes the kicker: if you claim you have it and say you will seek help (whether you have it or not), just because you want your children back, you can't have them because you might harm them. If you deny you have this "syndrome", you have it because denying it is a symptom, and you don't get your kids back. Once this "diagnosis" is make, you are guilty unless you can prove your innocence. Now tell me how a mother can prove her innocence if by the very act claiming that you are innocent and do not have the "syndrome", you are afflicted with the "syndrome". Quite the quandry, isn't it?

To be continued...

My First Blog!

Today is my first blogging experience. I am thankful to all my hound friends who showed me the way to blogging. I also am thankful to the pound for showing me the way to cheaper--well, everything! and getting some really good recipes! Thanks hounds and pups!