When reality and the internet collide

I've been a little hesitant lately to post here. A few months back, Jazz mentioned to a kid at school that her mom had a blog, but she didn't know the name of it. Turns out, it wasn't too hard to find me. This kid just typed in my name and up popped my blog. Normally, I wouldn't care, but the friend read through my entries and found a story about Jazz that I found to be funny. Jazz thought otherwise when the kids at school were laughing at her.

My point of being here was to tell my version of events and admit how difficult this whole parenting thing can be. I've begun to realize that my stories are not just my own. I share them with my kids. For Lila and Violet, that's not such a big deal but the same cannot be said for Jasmine.

Another reason I like to do this is to vent. I'm finding that increasingly harder to do. I can't really talk about (ok, bitch about) the other parents in the playground because many of them are computer savvy enough for MySpace pages. My fear is that these people will enter the names of school parents into the computer and see where they pop up. I'd, of course, pop up here discussing this bratty kid or that skanky mom and end up the Playground Pariah. I've already had one mom innocently enough ask me where I lived, only to have her confront me the next week wondering if I knew just how many sex offenders lived on my street. For whatever reason, she felt the need to enter my address into the Family Watchdog site. Maybe she does this to every person she meets, I have no idea. But faced with that kind of scrutiny, it's not hard to imagine the reaction I'd get if she found my cute little blog with some post criticizing someone at school. And if I can't bitch about the Playground Moms, what good is a blog anyway?

So here I am, at a crossroads. It seems the only way to move forward is to go away to a new space. A new blog where I can be anonymous might do the trick. Although, I'm not sure how this blog linked me to my name to begin with, so this may take me some time. If anyone would like to follow me along, let me know and I'll be sure to get you the new address. Unless, of course, our kids go to school together. Then I'll give you a fake address to a site that is rosy and never complains (and consequently is never updated either).

I stood on the playground breathing warm air into my freezing cold hands. Beth, the saint-like preschool teacher stood command at the door scanning the crowd for familiar faces. She spotted a parent, called out a child's name and opened the door. The little girl ran from the school. "Mooooommmmmy!!!" she yelled, all the way down the walkway until she reached her mom, and jumped into her arms. I smiled, and turned to Violet's door to wait for her class. I'd been in my car a few minutes before and watched Violet play outside with her friends. I love watching her play when she doesn't know I'm there. I get to see School Violet. The person she becomes after I drop her off and she's on her own. It's the personality formed by her home life that gets road tested on the playground. I watched her run around, call to her friends and laugh.

Four years old might be the best age. It just seems like the best of both worlds. At four, my kids were mostly independent. They could use the bathroom, get a juice box, and carry on a conversation. Granted, it was mostly about what clouds taste like or does Cinderella ever go poop, but still, a conversation none the less. Yet at four, they are still your baby. They still like to be snuggled and kissed. They still need you, but they don't rely on you every second of the day. And they still really like you. Sure, my seven year old is happy to see me pick her up at school. She gives me a hug, but the level of ethusiam is different. She's a first grader and knows I'll be there to get her every day. The preschoolers always act so amazed that their parents are waiting for them. They never expect that when the door opens mom will be standing there.

Joanne opens the school door and scans the crowd. She see me and calls to Violet. Violet comes outside and yells "Moooooommmmmmyyyyy!!" all the way to me where I picked her up and give her a kiss.

It has to be the best age if you can make them insanely happy just by showing up.

Update

Wal-Mart has decided to not sue Debbie Shank for the money in her trust fund. Public pressure caused them to re-evaluate the case and change their mind on how to proceed. Congratulations to everyone who emailed Wal-Mart and forced them to reconsider.

I'm happy that the right thing happened here, but it's still a sad story. I wonder how far the $417,00 will go when it comes to Debbie's care and what will happen when it runs out. And it's terribly sad, as one of my smart commenters posted, that the laywers ended up with more money than Debbie or Wal-Mart.

Small victories- I'll take them where ever I can.

Wow. It's been two months since I posted anything here. It's not for lack of material, that I can assure you. Living with three kids, enough stuff happens around here to fill a book. I'll come back to my kids antics later, but for now I want to share someone else's story.

This story is about Debbie Shank. Debbie was a Wal-Mart employee up until a near fatal car accident that left her with permanant brain damage. She must live out the remainder of her life in a nursing home, the severe short term memory loss rendering her unable to live with her family and continue working. Debbie's family sued the driver at fault for the accident and won a $1 million settlement. After paying the attornies fees, $417,000 went into a trust fund for Debbie's care. If any of you have had a relative in a nursing home, you know that money won't last long. But it is something to help out. Debbie's husband has cancer and works two jobs to try and support his family but recently had to divorce Debbie so that she qualified for more financial aid. And to make matters even worse, the Shank's son was killed in Iraq while serving for our military.

Think this poor family's story can't get any worse, oh, it does. Wal-Mart has now sued Debbie Shank for the $417,000 that is in her trust fund. The reason? According to the fine print of her health insurance form, Wal-Mart has the right to take any monies received in a settlement for reimbursement of medical expenses paid out through the plan. They were suing her for more money but all she had was the $417,000 so the Supreme Court said that was all they could demand from her.

Wal-Mart's response to the family and public was that while the Debbie Shank case was sad, they owe it to the other plan members to put money back in to the plan when ever they can. They have to follow the plans strict guidlines.

Ok, so the plan dictates what Wal-Mart is legally entitled to receive. I understand that, we all do. However, I find it hard to belive that a company who posted $90 BILLION dollars in sales last quarter cannot find a way to make a charitable contribution to Debbie Shank in the amount of $417,000. This goes way beyond Supreme Court rulings and insurance plans, this is about common decency.They can rationalize this all they want, but we all know this is just wrong. The benefit plan may be entitled to the money but Wal-Mart can and SHOULD do better.

The link to the CNN.com story is below. I'm encouraging every one to read it and send an email to Wal-Mart. Let them know what you think. Maybe if they feel the pain in their next sales report, they'll see Debbie Shank's story from a new perspective.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/03/25/walmart.insurance.battle/index.html

Gulliver, you shameless bastard.

Since it snowed all day Monday, the kids had the day off from school. Pretty soon after 9:30am, the neighbor girls called to see if Lila could play. For the sake of anonymity, let's just call them Root and Shoot. Their mom is a former vegetable growing-homeschooling-all things earthy is best-Hippie, so those are actually not too far off from their real names.

I've had a little trouble in the past with the Hippie (as she will now be called). She is very strict about what she feeds her kids and about allowing them to watch tv. I found this out over the summer when her kids had been in my yard playing all day. I invited them into the air conditioning for a lunch of chicken nuggets and Sponge Bob. Big no-no.

So Lila, Root, and Shoot played out in the snow for most of the morning. They came in at noon and asked if they could have lunch with us and then play inside our house. I took their lunch orders ("Since you don't have tomato, which is the best part of a ham sandwich, I guess I'll have to have peanutbutter and jelly.") and let them sit in front of the tv only while they ate. As soon as everyone was done, I turned it off and told them to go play. And they did play. They played toys, made forts, did crafts, played school and none of it involved any tv.

Around 4:30pm, everyone was getting kind of bored. They'd been over all day and were starting to get hungry and tired. We had a half and hour to kill before I walked them home for dinner and I was out of ideas. Then I remembered that my dad had dropped off a copy of Gulliver's Travels. It was put out by the Hallmark channel, so it had to be family friendly! The girls all settled on the couch with a big blanket and I sat down with my knitting and we started the movie. I have to admit, I wasn't really paying a whole lot of attention to the movie. I knew he was a giant in a land of tiny people but I'm new at knitting, so I still have to watch what I'm doing. I was sort of listening though, and at one point Gulliver admitted to having drunk the "Royal cellar full of wine" in celebration of helping the Liliputians defeat their enemy. "I was quite drunk, when it happened." He said. This is where I put my knitting down. What in the hell did the drunk do? I thought. We can't possibly be talking date rape, right? This is a Hallmark movie and the logistics of a giant and a Liliputian...
It turns out the Royal Castle was on fire. The Queen was trapped on the top floor and no ladder could reach her. With the fire fast approaching, Gulliver had to do something.

I knew right then what he was going to do.

Gulliver, in all his drunken glory, unzipped his pants and pissed on the fire.

The movie makers did a lovely job of dubbing in a realistic pissing sound. And the stream? Why any man would be proud of a full bodied forceful stream like that.

"What is that?" Shoot asked me. I didn't say anything.
"That's pee, right?" asked Root.

Just then the greatful, and thoroughly drenched, Liliputian Queen looks up to thank whoever saved her from the fire. Her eyes widen as she looks up, a horrified look spreading across her face. It was the same look on my face as I realized what was happening, only I didn't have to stare straight into Gulliver's one eyed monster.

The queen screams her bloody head off when she realizes she covered in giant piss and not lake water as she originally thought (you'd think the stench of red wine urine would have given that away, but suspend your believe folks).

It's at this point that Lila starts laughing like a maniac. "That's pee? She's covered in pee!" Lila rolls off the couch in an absolute fit of giggles.

"Ok girls, it's time to go home!" I jumped up and turned off the tv and ushered them into boots and hats, hoping the quick action of gathering all their belongings will make them forget what they've just seen. But, I know it won't. When they get home they won't tell their mom about the healthy lunch, the forts or any of the crafts we did. All they'll remember to tell her is that Jenn let them watch a movie about a drunk giant who pissed on people.

That's why I left them at the end of the driveway instead of walking to the door. I'd rather stare headlong into Gulliver's dick then get the look of shame from the former Hippie.

Little Punk

Jazz: So, I see you signed up to work the bake sale tomorrow.

Me: Yup.

Jazz: Well, I won't be there you know. So you'll have to hang out with all my dorky friends!

Me: That's ok. I have plenty of stories I can tell them.

Jazz: Was that 12 to 1 you were working? Oh, yeah, I can make that. I'll be available.

Me: That's what I thought.

-----

Phone call at 8am

Jazz: Hey can you bake a bunch more stuff for today?

Me: What? I spent 6 1/2 hours baking yesterday! Why do you need more stuff?

Jazz: No one else made anything and we'll never make it throught the first lunch period.

Me: (muttering) Do I have anything left? Are there any eggs left?

Jazz: Oh, and, no other adult signed up to help us either so if you could come in earlier that would be good.

Me: So you want me there by 11am with enough baked goods to feed the whole eigth grade?

Jazz: Pretty much. I'll see you later! *click*

Me: I fucking hate bake sales.

The week that made Mommy want to run away and join the circus.

December is done and I'm finally starting to feel like I'm back in the land of the living. It was a mad rush to figure out how to pay for Christmas, find gifts, and get everything organized. It made me rather Bah-humbuggy. I expressed my distaste for all things tinlsey and festive at our monthly PTA meeting and I thought the gasps of horror were going to blow me through the library wall and straight into the Instructional Resource room. "How could you say that?" said one particularly disgusted parent. "You have little children at home!" Apparently the fact that someone of the small persuasion would be ripping open gifts at the butt crack of dawn in my living room should make it impossible for me to feel any holiday stress. Screw her. She's a freak who drinks gas station coffee and eats crab rangoons during the meetings.

But Christmas came and was good. The kids were spoiled and had great fun. The food was great and we all ate way to much. Well, there was that unfortunate incident of my husband stepping on a three inch embroidery needle. It went straight into his foot - what the hell are the odds of that? It stopped just before the eye and I got to pull it out for him. That was pretty gnarly! I was really impressed by how much it bled after it was out.

Then December 26th happened.

Jasmine woke up early and left the house by 7:30am to go redeem her Christmas gift cards. She was back by 9:30am and said she didn't feel well. It all fell apart shortly after she came home. She puked more than any human should. I banned everyone from using the upstairs bathroom and sent the little ones to my mom's house. It was close to 11pm before she was able to settle down and sleep. But the damage was done. Pretty soon Lila starting in, then my mom was ill, followed closely by Violet. I'll spare you the gory details and just say that I fully expected Dustin Hoffman to knock on our door dressed in HASMAT gear and ask if we'd seen a monkey roaming around. Somewhere in there our rabbit died too. I hate to be insensitive, but I was really too tired to care. My dad bagged him up and left him by our car. He then went to a "better place", otherwise know as my sister in law's dumpster. Don't judge. What the hell would you do with a dead rabbit in below freezing weather?

It was pretty bad. I had some barfing everyday during Christmas break. On the upside, I'm now pretty good at pulling the sheets off the bed in a nice ball so that when I get to the washer the icky part can unfold right into the machine. Hey, we all need skills baby.

So New Years Eve came around and everyone was much better. We had a few friends over and we're in bed by 2am. By 4:30am I was up and ready to die. So was my husband. It seems the nasty Norwalk virus survived my ferocious bleach scrubbing and slammed us too. We were in rough shape, and the worst part was that New Years Day is Lila's birthday. I had promised her that she could have chocolate chip pancakes for her birthday breakfast and I hated to disappoint her. The smell of the hot butter and the batter almost made me cry, but I managed to cook two before giving up. I spent the rest of the day moaning on the couch and Darryl spent it in bed.

So that was my week of hell. But it's done, gone, and soon to be forgotten. I officially welcome 2008! Just be gentle to me, I'm low on detergent and bleach.