Wyatt and I at the pumpkin patch.
Today my friend Patty and I took our kiddos on the annual pumpkin patch field trip that we have done every year for the last six years.
We met in the fall of 2003 at a community center play area. You know the kind, where zombie eyed moms go as soon as they can every weekday morning cuz there is no where else to go until nap time. Our oldest girls were playing together and we struck up the boring conversation of, how old is your child? does she sleep through the night? how horrible was your labor? blah blah blah...
I never play poker. Honestly I don't even know how. Actually I really don't like card games.
Sweet Wyatt...
My sweet pickle Elliot began second grade!!!!!
My sweet Elliot turned 7 this month. I cannot believe it! I have a 2nd grader!
My head is a box full of nothing
and that's the way I like it
My garden's a secret compartment
and that's the way I like it
and that's the way I like it
Your body's a dream that turns violent
and that's the way I like it
and that's the way I like it
The winter is long in the city
and that's the way I like it
-Ben Lee
These two are the product of love. So sweet. So funny.I have been thinking quite a bit this year about want vs. need. I am blessed blessed blessed that my children NEED nothing. The want part is a whole different story...
I received the letter below from someone at United Way that describes the painful yet wonderful work that she does.
I cannot tell you how it touched me. The impact, for me, is so tangible.
I will not be giving gifts this year (except a few to my girls)
I will not be doing cards.
I will not stretch my families bank account out just to have something in a box for someone to open.
I will not go to the mall and shop like crazy and get stressed out.
BUT...
I will bask in the love of my daughters and my partner.
I will bake some cookies.
I will make phone calls and tell family and friends that I love them and miss them.
I will say my prayers for love, peace and a long life.
I hope you feel the message below as I did.
Peace Out
Moments of Hope and Triumph
My days are spent sitting on the floor of my office (occasionally exchanged for my
official therapist’s chair) providing therapy to children and teenagers who have been the victims of sexual or physical abuse or other traumas. The children I see have endured unspeakable experiences, and it is my job to help them, in some way, to speak of these things, to heal and to move on to a semblance of normal life. There are children who have been forced by a loved one to perform baffling and humiliating sexual acts, sometimes over a period of years; there are children whose bones have been broken by their parents, and there are children who have witnessed the murder of a parent and held that parent’s hand as he lay dying. The range of these children’s experiences is vast, and too varied to recount in detail.
It may seem as though it would be too heartbreaking to endure, listening to the children’s individual stories of trauma. However, the reality is that although children address their issues in therapy, they do not spend all their time in tears or despair. In fact, many of them seem to have in common a wish, even a drive, to appear and be normal. From this wish, there emerges a sort of hopefulness and even optimism, which can help to propel the therapy forward towards healing. In the process, there is much richness – in the children’s expressions of hurt, fear and anger; in their depictions of their traumatic experiences; in their resolutions of existential dilemmas; in their humor, and in their individual personalities and modes of expression.
There are difficulties in this work, but these do not have so much to do with hearing the children’s experiences: I have long since accepted that these things happen in our world. The difficulties have to do with the children who can’t be reached or helped, the children whose home landscapes are so desolate that the help I provide is not enough to sustain them, and the parents who cannot move beyond their own needs in order to help their children. And there are frustrations, such as the endless mounds of unnecessary paperwork, the bane of all mental health agencies these days.
But, in therapy, there are moments of hope and triumph, moments when I realize something is occurring that is both simple and ordinary, and at the same time, profound and beautiful. What sustains me in this work is the sum total of these many moments.
There are the moments when a child and her mother embrace in tears, the child finally understanding that the mother does not blame her for the horrible thing that has happened and changed their lives so drastically. These are spellbinding moments to witness, rendering me awe-struck by the power of the bond between mother and child.
There are moments when a child moves from the status of victim to that of victor, exacting metaphoric revenge on someone who has hurt him. One such moment is depicted in an eight year-old’s drawing of his abuser, his uncle, behind bars. The uncle reportedly has an intense fear of spiders, so there are many large, malevolent spiders perching on the webs that festoon the cell. Outside his cell, on a table, rests a bowl of popcorn – his favorite food – forever just out of reach.
There are moments when a child arrives at an answer to the age-old question of why bad things happen in the world. After months of struggling with this dilemma, the son of a murder victim, a religious child, demonstrated his answer in the form of a puppet show. In the show, God says “nice” things like “thank you” and “I love you,” the devil says “mean” things like “stupid” and various unprintable words. The human, who is a combination of the two, says both the nice and the mean words, and we understand together that it is our fate to live in a world where people are capable of both divine good and diabolical evil.
There are moments when I feel privileged beyond description. When a distressed teenager hands me her poems, poems about her innermost feelings, born of anguish and despair, I feel I have been entrusted with something more priceless than a medieval manuscript. When children present me with drawings about the therapy itself, I realize I have been given something important and special. These drawings are sometimes of the two of us – drawings in which we hold hands, or perhaps we are piloting a boat with our fishing poles extended from the stern, cruising through serene, tropical seas in which no sharks will ever live. With all these gestures of trust, I’m not sure what I have done to inspire such an honor, but I suspect it’s as simple as the fact that I have taken the time to listen, to respect, and to support. At these times, I realize I have intersected with a young person at a critical juncture, and I have, for a while, accompanied that person on a life-affirming voyage.
And, finally, there are the ultimate golden moments (tinged with some sadness for me), the moments toward which the trajectory of therapy has been leading, when it becomes apparent a child is ready to leave therapy and move along life’s path, no longer needing me to lead or to follow.
This is for you and you know who you are rockin the side pony. Oh yea, try and act like you only did it for Halloween. I bet you do your hair like this every weekend AND that pretty eyeshadow.(Reuters) -- When Tricia Himawan was a financial analyst, she worked 50 hours a week and earned about $75,000 a year. Now, she works, by her estimation, about 119 hours a week doing 11 different jobs, and, for 10 of them, she makes ... nothing.
"I work nonstop as a mother," says Himawan, of West Orange, New Jersey, as she breast-feeds her nine-month-old son Jonas and watches over 4-year-old Juliana.
If she were paid for her work as a mother, she would be earning almost $140,000 a year.
That is the conclusion of research conducted by Salary.com, a firm based in Waltham, Massachusetts, that specializes in determining compensation. Himawan was one of 40,000 mothers who responded online to Salary.com explaining what their job entailed and how many hours they worked.
The typical mother puts in a 92-hour work week, the company concluded, and works at least 10 jobs. In order of hours spent on them per week, these are: housekeeper, day-care center teacher, cook, computer operator, laundry machine operator, janitor, facilities manager, van driver, chief executive officer and psychologist. By figuring out the median salaries for each position, and calculating the average number of hours worked at each, the firm came up with $138,095 -- three percent higher than last year's results.
Even mothers who work full-time jobs outside the home put in $85,939 worth of work as mothers, according to Salary.com.
"My work is my family right now, and my backbone is about to break," says Himawan, who now also works at home as a real-estate broker."My baby is on my hip 24 hours a day."
CNN's Jonathan Mandell contributed to this report.
So how do you like them apples? I say, HOW. DO.YOU. LIKE. THEM. APPLES?
Dear Friends and Family,
Yes, I'm doing it again - I signed up for the 2008 Breast Cancer 3-Day! I had such an incredible experience doing the 3-Day last year that I'm going back for more. I'm so excited about this event, even though this year I really know what I've gotten myself into.
It seems inadequate to try and explain the experience I had last year with words. I was on a rather large team and we had a blast, but there was a core group of us that really bonded.That core group is now going by the name The Lickity Splits. These girls are crazy and fun and passionate about life.
My girlfriend Jacqueline Reid flew up form Texas to walk with me. She will be with me again this year!
Anna Schumacher is completely insane and makes the best hats!
Kristin Haugen (kdawg) is a bruiser. I wouldn't want to meet her in a dark alley! Darkly funny.
Courtney Fede is a sweety.
Carol Franco loves nachos and would do anything in the world for you.
Nicole Taylor is on her 5th year as a survivor. GO COLIE!
Angie Kemp is Anna's redneck cousin who is flying in from South Carolina is walk with us.
Diana DuVerger and Angela Rapp are flying all the way from Massachusetts to walk and support Kdawg.
Angela Cough is walking to support Anna.
This event isn't easy, but I promise you, I wouldn't be doing it if I didn't believe 100% that it was worth every muscle ache, weary night and training walk.
I need your help.
If you have any questions or want to hear more about what I'm doing, I love talking about the event. Thanks for all of your support. I'm incredibly lucky to have people like you in my life!
January 6, 2008. Wyatt's third birthday.My head is a box full of nothing
and that's the way I like it
My garden's a secret compartment
and that's the way I like it
and that's the way I like it
Your body's a dream that turns violent
and that's the way I like it
and that's the way I like it
The winter is long in the city
and that's the way I like it
So please
baby please
Open your heart
Catch my disease
-Ben Lee
Anna Schumacher
