It is that time of the year when we will soon be sending out Christmas cards to those in our lives. I look back to a time in my life where I use to send out 100 Christmas cards, and I am not exaggerating. I love sending out cards to people especially for the holidays. I normally have them all ready to be mailed before Thanksgiving!
I would go store to store trying to find the " perfect cards" to buy. The fun part of sending cards is receiving them as well. Years ago I realized that I would send cards every year to the same people and there were a handfull that never sent one back in return. That's fine, no biggie alot of people don't like sending cards, it's not thier thing to do. However in my cards I would say things like "keep in touch" with my phone number listed, or "call me so we can catch up with each other and perhaps have dinner". Yes I would get a call here and there, but yet still there were people who wouldn't call nor send a card. So I came to the conclusion that I would stop sending cards to those who apparently I meant nothing to. Now yes that seems harsh to say but come on, if I can take the time to send you a card you can at least take the time to either send one back or give me a call. I know it is the season of giving, but when you are the one who is constantly giving it becomes tiring and frustrating. There are still some people that I have continued to e-mail or send a card to and I have heard nothing from them. Or there are some that say "yeah sure we have to get together soon, and soon never comes.
I know that people are busy with work and perhaps school, but the people I am talking about do not have kids, nor husbands for that matter. That is the part that really gets me going. Why is it that "I" am the only one trying to reach out? When I meet people and we click I like to stay in touch with them, and at one point of my life I did click with these people. So much so that I even had one stand up to my wedding! So I made myself promise that if I have not spoken to someone for over a year and that person has made no attempt to call or email me then I will not be sending anymore cards, no more phone calls no more nothing. It stops here. Life is precious and short and I am not going to cry over spilled milk anymore, I have way to much going on in my life right now to be dealing with people who are perhaps to busy with themselves to realize that there are people out there that touched their lives at one point. And this is not only friends (or should I say "so called friends") this goes for family as well. I would always send out cards, send invites to my kids parties, and many of my family members wouldn't even bother to call to say "gee, sorry I can't come..............
How hard is it to respond to an invite? Or to at least have the courtsey to call and say thanks for the card............... I guess people are much more busier than I am, funny but as far as I know we all work, many of us full time, and the majority of us have children, but the sad thing is that right now I am the one that has more kids than anyone and yet I am the only one reaching out to keep in touch.
That's sad, and it hurts...............................but not for long, I will now put all my energy in the people in my life "right now" and I will move forward, without looking back.
WOW!!! What a weekend!! Well it started on Thursday night when my niece looked a little flushed, I checked her temp and she was fine but still I had a feeling she was coming down with something, so I gave her childrens' motrin. Next morning I woke her up to get her ready for daycare when I noticed her face looked funny, so I put the light on only to see that sometime during the night she got sick and puked on herself, I have a feeling that even she didn't know what happened because she would have cried out when she was getting sick so she must have been real out of it. So I kept her home Friday, by Friday night she was fine but now my nephew was sick, he too was throwing up but at least he woke up crying so we heard him. Well he didn't feel better till Saturday night when the fever broke and no more puking, but wait my story doesn't end there. Like I said he felt better Saturday night, now Saturday night my youngest child starting to vomit and yes had a fever she had it worse than the other two, I was up with her all night, finally we fell asleep around 3am that is when her little body decided to let her sleep, that is until 6:30 this morning when she got sick again (for the last time). However once I got back from my sons' last football game my other younger child (Boo) started going down vomit city, and yes the fever hit her as well. As of now I have all the little ones in bed. Boo hasn't gotten as sick as her twin sister but the night is still young so we shall see. I still have two more children for this to hit as well as my husband and then of course yours truly. I hope that the rest of us do not enter the city of vomit. I am still dealing with those horrible coughs. Boy I sure do hate this time of year. I am sure I will one day soon catch up on the sleep that I lost this weekend. I just want to say good bye to Vomit City and hello to the holidays.
For the last few nights I was watching the news, I try not to because of all the horror stories so I try to turn it on right when the weather comes on. Well the last few nights I am sure you have seen that there have been women (mothers of young children) reported missing and/or killed. I sat last night and cried when they found the one mother from Chicago Heights, her youngest is 6. What the hell is going on? Why are all of these women dying by the hands of their husbands or boyfriends? One young mom of 2 from Aurora was found stabbed, her boyfriend did it, and do you know why? Because the MF didn't want to pay child support!! The mom from Plainfield, mother of two (close to where I live) still has not been found she was in the process of divorcing her husband. The mom from Chicago Heights was seperated from her husband. There is another mother from Boilingbrook (again close to where I live) she is still missing. Her family says that she asked her husband (who is a cop) for a divorce. And let's not forget Lacey Petterson and her unborn baby.............
As you all may know I am a mother of four and my first marriage ended in divorce. It was a horrible relationship that I stood in for 10 plus years. Ever since my first born was two I was threatened by my then husband that if I ever left him he would take her and I would never see her again. From the first time he said that to me I made sure that she knew my full name (maiden name as well) our phone number, our address, city and state...... AT THE AGE OF TWO!! Because of the moron that I was married to my poor baby had to learn things that kids her age don't know yet. When we would fight (which was almost all the time) I wouldn't sleep right, because I was afraid he would take her in the middle of the night. He also told me a few times that if he couldn't have me no one else would either. When I finally stood up to him and filed for divorce I thought for sure he would kill me, when I moved from Indiana back to Illinois I again thought he would kill me. I had stayed in what was our home for 8 months after our divorce and twice he came over breaking the door down, not to mention scaring the hell out of me. So that made me think twice about moving. When my daughter told him that I was getting remarried I thought he was going to kill me, then again when I told him that he had to sign the annulment papers, and once again when I was pregnant with my girls. Each time I felt his anger towards me, and if you haven't guessed by now, yes I am afraid of him, I try so hard not to let him see it but I am sure that if he looks closely he would get his satisfaction. Once my girls were born (5 years ago) I went into court to see if I could in fact increase my child support payments from the ex. Low and behold I was told that I could file every two years! I never knew that. So needless to say the ex owed MY kids lots of money. Two years ago the state awarded me his income tax check which surprised me and of course put the fear in me once again because I knew he was going to hit the roof. He had hired an attorney 2 years ago to fight me on the increase of child support which he lost the case( DUH, if the state tells you that you owe more money why in the world would you try to fight the system?). Well since he fought me for 2 years guess what? Yep, he owes ME more money. and I say me because I have paying for everything that our kids need,the child support checks dont even come close to what the expenses are. I had sent him a letter over a month ago with copies of medical bills that need to be paid (we each have a percentage that we have to pay). I was real nice ( no seriously I was, I don't need him taking any nasty letters I would write to him to court to show the judge) and stated that I needed to know within 30 days when he was going to pay those bills, he also owes $300. plus to the dentist from last year. I said that if I didnt hear back or if those bills didn't get paid or at least partially paid then I had no choice but to take him to court to get those bills paid. Well he never got back to me nor did he pay the bills. My attorney sent me a copy of the order showing when we have a court date about the back child support and so I was nice ( YES NICE) enough to send him a copy of it plus a copy of the letter my attorney sent to me stating that he still owes me additional monies because he has never paid for school books, school activies and musical instruments. With this last letter my fear came back because I knew that I would hit yet another one of his buttons. And of course, I did. He called my daughter, she said that he was real drunk (nice huh) actually he called her about 4 times each time leaving a message. One telling her that because of me he was turning off her phone that he pays (yeah I know he makes real sense). Now she knows that if I do not agree she cannot go with him, period. I casually mentioned this to my son, that he needs to remember that because he lives with me that his father cannot pick him up from school without my permission. Of course the school as this on file as well. But my fear still won't go away. I am always looking around for a car that looks suspicious, always looking out my rear view mirror to see if a car is following me, I use to have nightmares about him attacking me. People tell me to call down not to worry, he won't hurt the mother of his kids, but they don't know him like I do. And just tonight he tells MY son that he is in counseling because he is afraid he is going to hurt someone. OH THAT IS JUST FREAKIN' NICE!! Sorry this is so long but I feel that the more people know about my fear the more my life will not go in vain.
For the last 2 weeks I have had every child in my home coughing up their lungs! Seriously it sounds horrible. Well we all know that the news media has been saying not to give children under the age of 2 cough meds that are over the counter. Ok well that is fine but what do we give them then? Gee no one can answer that question. The Sun-Times had an article about it where one doctor is stating that to stop giving over the counter cough meds asap, yet when the question came up this brilliant doctors' answer was: (GET THIS) Give the children the correct dose amount of the medication. BUT YOU JUST SAID A FEW SENTENCES AGO NOT TO GIVE IT TO THEM!! Oh sure confuse the crap out of us concerned parents, what a moron!
I understand that there are people out there that give the children a stronger dose (for whatever reason) but what these parents need to realize is that there is more harm to their child in doing that. Giving them more is not going to make the cough, cold, fever etc. go away any sooner. But if we are going to have knuckleheads tell us not to give certain meds then for petesake tell us what we can give them.
I took the girls in to the doctor today and he stated that these types of coughs and colds normally hang around for 8 weeks! WOW!! that's a long time of hacking out a lung! So now I have a "prescribed" cough medication (just to let you know it is the over the counter stuff just in a different bottle). How horrible to see these kids miserable for 8 weeks and there is nothing I can do to help soothe them.
I was at Walmart the beginning of October and noticed that they had started putting up their Christmas stuff! I was like " You have got to be kidding me! It seems that all stores are putting up their Christmas items earlier and earlier every year. Now I for one LOVE Christmas, I love the lights and just everything about Christmas (And yes especially the true meaning of Christmas).
Now here is my thing, I know that there are people that decorate for Christmas the day after Thanksgiving. I on the other hand have always decorated the week before Thanksgiving for two reasons. One is because I have sooooooooooooooooo much stuff (27 rubbermaid containers to be exact, and that is just for the inside of the house) that it takes me a long time (with 6 kids I am surprised I get anything of it set up) to put everything exactly where I want it. Second I love to sit at my dinning room table on Thanksgiving Day with my house decorated for the spirit of the Holidays. I feel that without some type of decorations Thanksgiving doesn't feel like a holiday. So when do you decorate for the holidays?