On the TV.

Last night I watched Zebra Migrations (or something about zebra migrations) on Nat Geo.  What I learned is that the zebras have never known an orphaned zebra to get adopted.

I think they know this because of the after documentary interviews they conducted with the zebras.

In all my life, I ain’t never seen it.  You seen it?  Uh uh.  Me neither.

But I didn’t stick around to hear the whole story.

I’m guessing zebras don’t like the paperwork involved.

Could you imagine the mountains of paperwork if you little orphan zebra got attacked by a lion?

Where were you? What were you doing?

I was in AFRICA.

I was waiting around hoping not to get eaten by lions.

But it’s Africa.  Things happen.

Bite me.

I’d totally get cited for that.

This past weekend was that weekend.

Our original plan was to go to a disc golf thingy, but then then Tech Support got shot.

Instead, we went to a local state park.

But not before renting a hideous RV that I named Minnie Pearl because it had a price tag permanently imbedded in it and also smelled like a dead old lady.

I will be naming names.

After we get our deposit back.

After announcing my absence on Facebook, friends rallied.  Annie. Camping?  They were on the ready in case I needed them to throw me a benefit or something.  Had our house burned to the ground or something? No.  Just supporting the cause of turning my boys into stinky men who don’t shower.

For the record.  No one showered.  Except Tech Support.  No one brushed their teeth.  Except me.  And we were all fast asleep about ten minutes after the sun went down.  Seriously, who knew complete and utter darkness and no TV would have that effect?

So, that happened.

I made it back alive.

Was not killed by the elusive Chupacabre.

Which, is the Big Foot of the canine world, in case you don’t constantly have the History Channel on at your house.

However.

There was a bra that got a little out of hand and tried to kill me.

#truestory

Being the runner that I am (shut up) I am finding myself wearing workout clothes a lot.  Say like, most of the time.

I threw a random regular bra into my bag, in case the uniboob look annoyed me.  Which it did.  Now, I don’t know if it was hurt feelings about getting relegated to the minor leagues or what, but that stupid thing tried to kill me on several occasions.

Having lived through that ordeal, I counted myself lucky.

Til I woke up with what looked like vampire bites on my hip.

By the end of Sunday they looked like boobs in need of a new bra, by this morning they had grown cleavage.  I was going to Tweet the picture, but could not get them to not look like boobs.  Which makes me want to Tweet them even more.

We are back, safe and sound in our own home, in our own beds.  Hopefully free of bugs and I will hopefully be down to only one set of boobs later this week.

Because if I have to wear two bras for the rest of my life, please just shoot me.

While gone, my phone coverage was shotty, ahem.  So I did not answer the multiple calls from Mama.  Luckily she did not give up.  She wanted to ask me for a visit.  Which is fine.  She is allowed to visit.  Here.  She wanted to alter that ever so slightly.

She wanted US to drive 7 hours round trip, to visit the baby daddy in his halfway house on THANKSGIVING, because he was all sad that he hadn’t seen his children in 5.5 years.  Boo freakin hoo.  Can I say it more politely?  Hell NO!   Not being deterred, she came back with a counter offer this morning.  He can use his day pass to meet us half way and we can have lunch in McDonald’s on Thanksgiving.  Sorry, not open.  and also? Bite me.

There is no legal requirement for us to facilitate any visit with any person.  We allow Mama to see them if she puts forth most of the effort.  Something that has only happened once in the 18 months we’ve had this agreement.  Driving 7 hours on Thanksgiving to have dinner at a halfway house, that I’d probably have to cook, is not part of the deal.

If I ever update my status to “driving 7 hours to visit the babydaddy in his halfway house” someone convene a full on intervention, and benefit concert to aid in my mental health bills.

Because that’s just crazy.

anyway

I have to get milk.  Hopefully before everyone else decides to go the store for their turkey.  hahahaha – too late for that.

until later

be awesome

For instance, I use stairs whenever possible.  At a conference I attended this weekend, however, the stairs were behind the black curtain.  At said black curtain a person was posted to discourage the use of the black curtain/stair combo.  This person had the task of herding all persons towards the escalator or whatever.  I usually walked right past the post and moved confidently towards the stairs.  No one tackled me.  Most didn’t even say anything.  So really, the black curtain was not really a rule, more of a recommendation.

Which I didn’t follow.

This quirk of mine shows up all the time in the foster care world.  Agencies and Departments are so used to using the children as bait to get the adults to do whatever they want, they hate it when we can see past what is being presented as a rule and expose it as the recommendation that it is.

The recommendations are that the kids get therapy, that we report their misbehavior to the agency and therapist so they can get the help they need.  We will take respite and open the door to anyone with a badge, because we “have to” it’s a rule.  It’s not written anywhere, but it is.  Trust us.

I am in therapy.  My kids aren’t.

My kids do not need therapy.  They need specialized parenting.  They don’t need to talk about their feelings with a trained stranger, they need to share their feelings with their parent.  Do they have feelings I do not know how to deal with?  Yes.  Thus the therapy for the person who is best suited to train them.

Can a therapist tell them to talk out their feelings, or whatever?  Yes, but unless they include me in what is going on with the child (WHICH THEY CAN’T even if the kid is two) I can’t really assist the process the other 167 hours a week.

“But we don’t pay for YOU to go to therapy.”

I never asked you to.

and by what they said, they mean…

“It’s easier for us to get grants and funding for an on staff therapist than it is to pay an outside person, who won’t share your records with us, for you to go to therapy.”

Oh, wait, you don’t make enough money from the state by keeping 2/3 of the daily stipend?  You poor things.

The kids were in therapy.  For years.  Our latest we saw weekly for almost two years.  Every week she said the same thing.  “I have a book I want you to read.  I don’t know the name or the author but I have it here somewhere, I’ll get it for you and give it to you next week.”

EVERY WEEK.  How is this helping anyone?  Well, except the agency that employs her, and receives grants and funding in excess of what they are paying her.

I stopped reporting every instance of every problem we ever have.

Although that is what I’m trained to do. (No you’re not – yes I am)  The agency will do every thing they can to encourage you to “pad” the reports with every poor behavior encountered.  This proooooves they need more money to deal with these difficult children.  It also serves to remind me several times that my children are horrible, not normal, but horrible.

Child A hits Child B.  Report it.  Child C uses “inappropriate” language.  Report it.  Child A wakes up every night and wanders in to other peoples rooms.  Report it.  How many instances of said behavior did you see this week?  429 instances of one child hitting another child.  726 swear words.  Many small children ending up sleeping in a pile on the couch, for goodness sake.  They are ungrateful ingrates dammit.  No one says “Please” or “Thank You” or goes to bed without crying.

Just like your kids.

Where do I write that Child A spends two hours a day singing and dancing because Child A enjoys that.  Or that Child B is a brilliant artist.  Or that Child C is capable of Oscar winning performances.  Oh, that goes in the overly dramatic check box. They do not want you reporting good behavior.  Too bad.  Since I stopped looking for the fund inducing behaviors they have decreased dramatically.

You cannot come to my house without an appointment.  Or at least another adult present.

Yes, you can come over unannounced, but if I am alone, I will not answer the door.  Straight up.  You can peek through my windows? I’ll wave to you, but you cannot come in.  Because if you come over unannounced, I know it is because you want to know if I kicked, hit, starved, forgot to bathe a kid.  And when you ask if I have ever kicked, hit, or forgot to bathe a child or “deprived” them of food,  I want a witness.  Because of course I’m going to say “yes” because I have.  Not out of anger nor have I done it on purpose, but there are rare occasions when someone is where they are not expected to be and they get kicked, or hit, or tackled.  Whatever.  Things happen.  Just because I have hit, kicked, tripped over, fallen on blah blah blah to just about every kid in the house, it does not mean that I did something wrong.

I don’t use respite.  (as provided and funded by my agency)

I don’t spend 24/7 with the kids either.  I take my breaks.  But instead of taking traumatized kids to a strangers house for the weekend, I hire a sitter and we leave.

This weird thing that I did was explored by the Psychologist yesterday.

Why would you do that?

Because the kids worry that we will drop them somewhere and never come back.  So not only are they in a weird place, they spend the whole time worrying we won’t come back for them.  If we let them stay home, they are at least in familiar surroundings with a familiar child care provider.  They also don’t have any experience with us not coming back.  At least one of them is quite familiar with being deposited into a strange home and never retrieved.

Yes, it’s more expensive.  It requires a hotel for mom and dad, which isn’t a bad thing.  You also can’t get people to babysit 5 kids for $60/day.  But we do it because it is the best thing for our family.  Kids included.  We have the money.  We need the break.  We aren’t asking the agency for anything and the kids are not in any danger.  We would not leave them with a stranger, which is, in effect, what you are asking us to do when you arrange respite for us.

All of these things comes down to money.  As it always does.  I am not playing the funding game.  I signed up for this “job” not in the best interest of the bottom line, I did it for what is in the best interest of the children.  All of them.

Am I perfect in it?  No.  But my kids are “thriving”.  When I take Felpsy to the pediatrician he remarks that we have “worked a miracle” in that child.  As former kids have aged out, they have returned.  Whatever it is we are doing is working.  Ask the people who have known them their entire lives.  Not just our friends and families, but the pediatrician, who has known them since the day they moved in. The psychologist has been seeing them for three years.  Our family therapist has known us since well before the kids showed up.   Do not make assumptions based on your 20 minute visit.  Yes I have kicked them, probably a couple of times, and I don’t use respite or take them to therapy, I am not reporting their maladaptive behavior not because it isn’t present, but because I don’t want that to be the sum of their reports.

Ask anyone who knows us.  Knows us knows us.

They are good kids.

We are good parents.

We are lousy foster parents.

And I misquote:

All children under the care of (US) who are legally free to be adopted… they define that as kids whose parents rights have been terminated and are not in an adoptive placement…are MANDATED (emphasis mine) to attend the adoption awareness picnic in thus and such a park on thus and such a date.  If you, the foster parent, cannot drive them you must contact US and we will pick them up and deliver them to the park.

We Throw Frisbees?

Mandated picnics.

Is it a law?  Did you go to the legislature and make it make us take our kids to a picnic?  Or are you just using the word to scare me?  Because I’m not scared.

Not a bit.

I will go so far as to assure you that my kids will not be attending.  And if you show up and take them, I’m calling the po po.

I will be forwarding a GINORMOUS box of frisbees for you to throw while you are at the park.

Tomorrow I will be shopping for a frame that will house the citation that I will surely be getting for not attending the mandated freakin picnic.

If only I had thought to keep the letter.  I laughed, showed the letter to Tech Support and immediately removed the bad juju from the house.  Although it would have been great defense in my trial.

You brought Mrs. Awesome to court, why?

Because she wouldn’t bring the kids to a picnic in the park where we had all legally free kids in the area on display for peoples who wanted to adopt.  And instead of, ya know, matching parents with children based on the parents self assessed criteria and the childrens needs, we decided to just dump a bunch of kids in the park and let the parents pick out the cute ones.   We figured that the kids could manipulate the probably very poorly trained parents into taking them home.  Because we realize that parents only really want cute children.  Even if they are fire starters and the would be parents specifically stated that fire starters were out of their area of expertise.  We figure it would be love at first sight and they would over look the child’s needs and just take them home.  We have TONS of kids in the system and those radio ads aren’t working.  Of course Mrs. Awesome has had the kids in her home for six freakin years and has spent thousands of dollars on an attorney so THEY can adopt the kids, but as you will notice she’s white and we should not place not white kids with her permanently because it is her intent to rob them of their cultural identity.  The kids will grow up believing they too are white.  And then one day, someone will let it slip that they aren’t white and that would crush them, so we feel it would be best to take them out of a home they’ve lived in their ENTIRE life so they can be with strangers who look like them.

Well that makes perfect sense.

One problem.

It’s Thursday and she has no concept of time.

Even AFTER I picked her up from camp she was asking if TODAY was her special day.

No, that’s tomorrow.

Today?  This day?

No, tomorrow.

Today is not tomorrow?

That is correct.

Commence the wailing and gnashing and the what not.

In a futile attempt to stop the wailing and the gnashing I had a surprise.

Wanna go see Mama?  At Chuck E. Cheese?

Which we did.  And her sisters, and Mama’s mama.  Who’d I’d seen before, but had never been formally introduced.  Let’s say, for the sake of anonymity, that Princess’s given name is Princess Mustard Foster.   We have submitted the name change to be Princess Pickle Awesome.  Turns out g’ma is named Mustard.  How did I go 5.5 years without this information seeping into my brain?  It’s not her given name, I know that to be the case, but I did not know that she went by Mustard.

In addition to learning that today is not tomorrow, I learned some other very important lessons tonight at the Cheese’s.

1. Stay away from Meth.  Far.  Far.  Away.
2. I have sexy feet.

Seriously, while using the facilities someone in the next stall commented on my sexy feet.  OK creepy and all, turns out it was one of the sister’s.

OK then, I’m just gonna go back out there and feel even more awkward, if that’s alright with you.

So, how did we end up at le Cheese with Mama?  Today at lunch, in a very noisy place, I started getting many phone calls.  All from Mama.  First, I don’t answer the phone when I’m with people, and second, the place was very loud.  I ignored it, and again, and again, and again.  Finally, what?  She was halfway through the three hour drive to see us (go to the beach) and wanted to stop by and see the kids.  That’s all well and fine, but set it up before you drive 90 minutes.  I told her the kids were at camp and had a field trip today, they’d not be available til 6ish.  OK fine, and we decided on Chuck E. Cheese, but she probly wouldn’t be done with the beach until dark.  Sigh.

I spent the next several hours contemplating the importance of a decent bedtime and seeing Mama.  Luckily, she decided that 6ish would be fine.

Now, when the babies were babies, we did not have visits.  As she was hiding the fact that she was already pregnant again from CPS.  So, until the twins were 10 months old, we had one visit where I “told on her” and CPS said she wasn’t pregnant, that some people just stay poochy after twins and I told them to have her pee on a stick  and I found out that would “violate her rights” and that’s the last we saw of her until we got the phone call that she had had a baby.

To say we had gotten off on the wrong foot, would be fair.  Me telling on her, because CPS was too dumb to figure out that pooches aren’t firm and move of their own accord.  Anyway, we had a visit at 10 months then not again til the twin were 13 months.  It happened to be Felpsy’s 2nd bday and I had gone to lunch with another foster parent when she got a call to “return to the office immediately”.  And I didn’t.  I went anyway and was stopped at the door.  I could see through the window that all “my” kids had been stripped naked and people were taking pictures.   OH HELL NO.

And the person stopping me was a CPS worker who very reluctantly had placed other kids in our home and did not like me.

Seems while we were gone, Mama was trying to get the oldest to say, on video (which is verboten to have video cameras brought in) that he had seen me hit the babies.  1 year old twins and a just this day 2 year old.  Well, after 45 minutes of watching it play out and Mama throwing a fit, they called in an investigator to take pictures of all the “bruises” – at which point I was thanking Lord baby Jesus above that I had made the pediatrician CHART every single Mongolian mark on the babies (which he thought was stupid).  And that all involved had fax machines.  I mean come on.  Mongolian marks are not bruises, and this part of the country should know what a freakin Mongolian mark looks like.

Mama and I did not get along well after that.  For years and years and years.

I have tried to not hold it against her.  I mean, what would I say or do to the woman who had MY kids?  But tonight, every shared whisper spiked the old paranoia meter, just a bit.  I’m happy.  I want them to have happy moments and shared secrets and what not, but still havin your babies stripped naked and photographed lingers for quite awhile.

Things seemed to go well tonight, but me and my sexy feet still took the long way home.

Where do you keep your knives?

Out of reach.

I’m sorry, they need to be in a drawer.

That seems right.

“Where do you keep your fire extinguisher?”

We keep it where the FIRE DEPARTMENT told us.

“No, you can’t keep it there.”

Well, that’s where the FIRE DEPARTMENT wants us to keep the FIRE EXTINGUISHER.

Does the health department know you keep it there?

I cannot testify as to what knowledge the health department has.  But, they do, and I don’t think they care.  They care about HEALTH because they are the HEALTH department.  They leave FIRE department business to the FIRE department.

Then Skipper asks us if “there is a better place to put it”.

You seriously aren’t treating me like I’m a three year old?  Are you?  Skipper?  Seriously, you want me to think about my decision and brain storm a more acceptable way of doing things?

I put the FIRE things where the FIRE people tell me, if you’d like I can call the FIRE man over and you two can arm wrestle for control.  Otherwise.  Throw a Frisbee.

Where do you keep your meds?

In a locked cabinet, in a locked closet, in a locked room.

But your keys are hanging right there.

Yes, but I can barely reach them, there are 400 keys, and my kids are not only FIVE, but they do not have the manual dexterity, nor the attention span to unlock three doors to get the Nyquil that has a child cap on it anyway.  Plus, against minimum standards, we have told them ‘NO’  and so they don’t even bother.

But I will put the damn keys in my pocket if it makes you feel better.

“Hey Skipper?  I know you are dealing with important matters such as the temperature of my freezer, but you might be interested that my husband has been trying to get one of the orphans some face time with an entymologist, because he’s such a bug freak.”

No, not really.  We don’t care that you are cultivating their interests and disciplining them so that they have self control, we just want to make sure that your butter is all the way wrapped up.

Do you have a fire escape plan posted?

We did, but we made a copy for adoption and then I don’t know what happened to it.

Well, you need to have a fire escape plan posted.

Yes, because my five year olds will stop and consult it in case of fire.  We have taught them that in case of a fire, don’t first go outside through, preferably a door, but a window if necessary.  The first thing you must do, is consult the fire escape plan that is five feet off the ground in the hall, then go out the nearest exit and proceed to where the plan tells you.

I’m going to leave it at that, because I no longer have cigarette delivery to my house.  But if you are considering foster care…..don’t do it unless God himself is making you.

Because Medicaid clients have a high rate of no shows they want us to be early.  Fine.  I can be early.  I don’t have a problem with that.  What I do have a problem with is that even though I am early I have to wait for over an hour to be seen.  Sure, I can pick my doctor.  If my doctor of choice takes Medicaid.  My doctor of choice does not.  Because Medicaid clients have a habit of not showing up, I assume it’s because it doesn’t affect them if they don’t.  No one charges the “no show” fee that they are supposed to, I am assuming because they tried, many times and FAILED.

So, I do not get to choose my doctor.  I get to choose my doctor from the few who take Medicaid.  There are a handful.  Do you know how hard it is to get a freakin’ appointment with one of a handful of dentists when they only set aside a small fraction of their time for Medicaid patients, because in all likelihood, the patient isn’t going to show?  Hard.

We originally had our dental exams scheduled for February.  We had the plague.  6/7 of our family was wishing for death.  I had to cancel our dental exams, (I did so, days in advance) that were already a month late because I didn’t want someone aspirating on their vomit, just to get their teeth cleaned.  Their “next available” was May.

So, to sum up thus far.  I can’t pick my doctor, and I can’t get an appointment.

While I was at the dentist’s office, the dentist’s office called me to remind me that another orphan had an appointment tomorrow, and that I needed to call back before noon to confirm that I was indeed going to make the appointment or they would bump me.  I do not answer my cell phone in waiting rooms.

You’re welcome.

After listening to the voicemail I went to the front desk to confirm that I would be there tomorrow for my kids appointment.

“Usually, people just call.”

Yeah, but I’m still here waiting for my last appointment.

Six months ago.  THAT’S HOW FAR BEHIND YOU ARE.

Luckily I have Jesus.  I asked him what he’d do.  He thought it would be better to play Mahjong on the iPhone than to break a commandment.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m grateful for any and all help we get.  But I would’ve paid $200 to get out of there in 20 minutes.  The actual amount of time I was seen.

That delay threw off the rest of my day, I had to push back a doctor appointment for another orphan half an hour.  The little Princess didn’t get to practice her God forsaken “graduation” from Mother’s Day Out.  And I didn’t make it home in time to put away all the syringes before my monthly visitor came.

Guess I should ’splain that.

Princess has a heart condition.  When she goes to the dentist she needs to take massive amounts of antibiotic.  I had three of the kid liquid medicine dispenser syringes lined up for her this morning, she took them, we ran off to do our day.  I did not come back until after school, where I was greeted in my driveway by a CPS worker coming to visit the orphans.  Right there on the table, three syringes and a bottle of medicine not being guarded by a ninja.  The bottle was empty, and I hope they are over harshing on us for things that the rest of the world does.

Like not rinse out medicine dispensers and leaving empty bottles of meds on the table because I had to hurry out the door because I was going to be late for being early.

Speaking of Felpsy, he’s graduating from Kindergarten.  Hey sport, way to master the ABC’s and the 123’s which you already knew, and since buying a cap and gown for Kindergarten graduation would be STUPID we just need to go and buy you some “Sunday best” which is discrimanatory against heathens.  I’m not a heathen, “thank you Jesus” but we wear our swim suits to church.  A by-product of living in a coastal community and the possibility that someone may need baptizin’.

Now, over the years the school has compelled us to attend these stupid infant graduations by holding them DURING school hours.  We can’t keep our kids home from them or we’ll go to jail for intentionally allowing our kids to skip school where they (get funding) are learning (although the test is over lurnin is done).  So, if we don’t show up (skip WORK)  we look like horrible parents.  Even worse,  WE look like horrible foster parents.

So, we go.

Which brings us to the 5th grader, who is also graduating.  A bit more of an accomplishment, but I would rather mark it by tossing out all of the Sponge Bob undies than attending YET ANOTHER graduation.  But whatever.  I attended the orphans’ I will go to yours too.

The only kid still at home that is not graduating is Sk8rboi, our 17 year old.  Who is going to school, and doing as well as he ever does, and working 25 or more hours a week and doing it all without so much as a “get your arse outta bed” from me.  He’s accomplishing something.

I need to write the school board.

He’s going to feel left out and develop a complex and end up in a clock tower.

Dear school board,

It’s not fair that not everybody gets to graduate from everything.  4/5 of my children will be graduating this year and my 1/5 is being discriminated against.  Either cancel all graduations or include everyone.  It’s only fair.  Also, I would like to recommend that each year you change the colors of the caps and gowns so that I have a broad color spectrum and no one is subject to hand me downs.  I also think that $30 is a good price point to start at.  The end of the year is a good time to hit us with these extra fees, because the kids are also going to lots of field trips and such because, as you know, standardized tests are over by the end of April and teaching kids after that would be pointless.

I’m not trying to tell you how to run things, just a concerned parent.

Sincerely, Annie

Also too, dear readers, don’t tell me to homeschool.  I cannot homeschool the orphans and homeschooling my “real” kids would seem cruel and exclusive.  Besides, the only thing I’ve effectively taught them is the “f” word and even that, I got wrong.

My Mother’s Day Celebrating began last week when Tech Support got me my present.  Cowboy boots. Or I guess cow “girl” boots, since I am in fact a girl.  Though the Census people had to ask.  Twice.  In case I forgot my first answer.

Also, my kids are white.  Who knew?  Not me.

Anyway….

I got cowgirl boots, and I rock them.  I picked them out in five seconds flat.  I was upset that I couldn’t get the right foot into the boot.  The left one slipped on without a problem, so I forced my wicked stepsister foot into that right boot.  All is good, but now I need my prince to remove my boot, and he usually tries to sneak a peek up my skirt.  How lucky am I?

The next day I got pudding cups from the twins, and cakes from the big boys.  We were on a bit of a sugar overload as we already had two cakes in the house from having friends over for dinner earlier in the week.  Yet, we managed.  Somehow.  We had to make sure we got rid of any evidence as we have a Shanda cake coming on Wednesday.

Anyways,

Friday, oMom showed up.  Well, I picked her up at the airport.  She took me shopping on Saturday.  The benefits of having a mother in law that only had boys.  Shopping.  I had to do it.  It would be impolite not to.  I ended up getting a couple of skirts and a jean jacket.  Tech Support did not realize the skirts were new, I have decided NOT to use this information to my advantage.  What can I say?

Mom was uber excited to get a biggish HDTV from the Chefs and we.  Too excited for someone who only gets three channels.

Turns out she was not excited about the TV.  Her puppy had kittens or something.

anyway

here’s your TV that we don’t really have because it’s at your house and you aren’t.

Anyway.

Then I took a nap.  I love naps.

Then we called Mama.  Felpsy told me that I was the best Mom ever, and wondered if it was ok if he told Mama that she was the best Mama ever.  I told him of course it was, he was super lucky.  I also thanked her for giving us beautiful children and assured her that she was honored in our home.

That is not to say that some of her actions of late haven’t frustrated me.  Like claiming a kid on her taxes.  That kinda messes ours up.  It is to say that just because the state can erase her name off a piece of paper does not negate her existence.  She is, and that is our reality.  You can’t pick your family, even when you do.

So happy belated Mother’s Day.  Hope you got a nap, or at least a steak.

Boog was slighted earlier today.  He and Little Miss Sunshine were playing airplane.   She took it upon herself to assign the duty roster.  “You can drive the plane, I’ll get the drinks.”

“Boys can get drinks too you know.”

No one wanted to be the pilot.  I’m going to spin this as they don’t feel the need to be in a position of power, rather they have a servants heart.  Well, it’s my story that gets told here.

Last week, while on Facebook I got chatted up by a former child of mine.  She wanted to know if she could come and see me.  Since she is still underaged I inquired as to her parents thoughts on the matter.  She emancipated at 17 so I encouraged her to come over whenever she felt like it.

I suppose my thoughts on the matter deserve their very own post.

She’s coming over tonight.

Then I’m going to night two of a women’s conference and let me just ask you this?  Why have we, as women as a whole, not yet gotten it into our pretty little heads that we are AWESOME, SO FREAKING AWESOME, and stop the whining?  Isn’t that the essence of a women’s conference, to tell us how awesome we are?  Apparently this theme sells, but more on that later.

Looking forward to going to church this weekend, corporately speaking.  We have a meeting with the Food Bank next week to finalize paperwork regarding the Back Pack Food Program, probably not in time for Spring Break, but  enough time to work out the kinks before the school year ends and we move from two schools to all of them.  We are doing our neighborhood school, it is not a Title 1 school, the needs here are real,  but overlooked in the evil rich district we live in.  We are also doing a school where it’s estimated that over 90% of the kids will participate.

So, I gots to go scan the horizon for my baby coming home.