Newlyweds!

Family Pregnancy Photo Shoot

A Heavy Heart

This weekend and today I have learned of two children and situations that just make my heart ache. The first, our neighbor boy, spent most of yesterday pouring his heart out to me. Why? (yes, I asked him) “because you’re a good person and I trust you.” Mind you I have never really talked to this twelve year old boy and aside from living next door don’t really know him or his family aside from waving as we drive up the cul-de-sac. And he poured his heart out to me. all about how his step dad isn’t nice to him, how he’s never been allowed to hold his baby sister (daughter mother had with new husband) how his real dad is homeless and on drugs and he couldn’t go see him this summer like he usually does because they don’t know where he is right now. He told me what it was like at his bio-dad’s when he used to go there every summer, the fights he saw, how he stayed in a trailer park with a child molester living next door and he was afraid to go outside. How he watched his dad drink and get in fights, how he can’t play football (or any contact sport) because his older brother hit him in the head with a baseball bat too many times and he has had so many consussions that it isn’t safe for him to play a sport where he might get another one. How he had to go to counseling for cutting. How all the kids at his middle school have pot in their lockers and try to get him to buy it and smoke it. My heart broke for him! There were times when I didn’t know what to say. I asked him if he talked to his mom about this stuff and his answer was no. He also said he hates counselors and doesn’t really talk to them either. Why he picked me, a virtual stranger I can’t begin to imagine. He is so sweet and has such good manners. When he told me they never let him hold his sister I let him hold Eli, I have never seen a boy like a baby so much- he ven peed on him and he didn’t complain. He was absolutely adorable with him and it just made me melt. He is so good with my girls, watching out for them, pumping up their bike tires, showing them where to pick blackberries. I have him over often and feed him whenever I can- and listen which seems tobe what he craves the most, someone to listen to him and spend time with him. I guess there’s not much else I can do. I wish there was but there isn’t. When we move I will miss that boy. He is the type of boy I hope my son grows up to be only without all the baggage and emotional distress.

The second I learned about in a roundabout way from a Facebook forum for mothers. Someone told a story of a baby girl born to a woman who is mistreating her. Some people think the mother has post partum depression; I just think she should have her child taken away. The girl is two weeks old and they leave her unclothed and put fans on her to “wake her up so she’ll feed faster” and letting her scream and telling family members not to hold “that spoiled child”. I mean I ciould go on and on, it makes me SICK. I am very anti-CPS but I flat out told the woman telling the story (the aunt, mother’s sister) to call CPS. I mean that woman has no business having a baby in her care! If I knew the woman’s name I would call but I don’t, all I can do is give this girl advice. It’s such a horrible situation. I would literally scratch that woman’s eyeballs out if I saw her treat that baby that way. I am so upset and I can do nothing except give my oppinion and advice to the aunt. 😦

Winds of Change

It’s August 22nd. We are supposed to be out of our house by September 1st and we have no idea where we’re going. We have 4 children including one 2 month old infant and not a job or job prospect between us- as of yesterday. They say when it rains it pours, well the deluge started in March and aside from the ray of sunshine that is my son Elijah, hasn’t stopped since and we now find ourselves on a very muddy slope on the brink of poverty. We can stay here and skate by on unemployment until we can no longer pay our rent and we lose our home and everything in it. Or we can default on our lease and relocate to another state where there’s actually jobs, but with less than five thousand dollars, no furniture, no jobs lined up, no family to fall back on and only one vehicle. As scary as that sounds, it also sounds exciting and there is at least the prospect of success. The option of staying here, well, we’ve been there done that. Just two years ago this same thing happened and we were both laid off within weeks of eachother. We lost everything. Absolutely everything. And we were unemployed for nearly two years. Now, two years of employment later, we have built ourselves back up, purchased furniture again, etc. only to lose it all again- in six months if we stay here or now if we leave here. I am so tired of starting over it makes me sick. I am also excited for the prospect of a new city and new opportunities. My husband is, in general, a much more “reserved” person than I am and he thinks we should just stay put. This from the man who has already been unemployed for six months…. I am of the oppinion that there’s three choices. Give up, give in or give it all you’ve got. I’m ready to give it all I’ve got. I refuse to fail. I refuse to sit by and watch while we lose everything- this way we’ll lose it all but it will be our decision and we’ll be leaving it all behind like pioneers in search of a new life, not forced to sell it off piece by piece on Craigslist to pay the rent. I don’t know what the next two weeks will bring, but I have no choice but to view this as a challenge, an opportunity, and give it all I’ve got. Because if I don’t, if I look at it any other way, it is too terrifying and depressing and I refuse to give up or give in so the only other option is what I’m choosing.