Smells like Mom

I was helping my son who is six. When all of the sudden he stops and says "mommy where are we going?". I say "nowhere baby, why?". He says It is because of how I smell. He starts to tell me that he knows how I smell when we go out and he likes that smell. I realized that he has picked up on my perfume. These are things I just never thought about. It hit me so hard, in a good way though. I thought, this will be one of those things he remembers as an adult. 

Last year my mom gave me a quilt from her house. It is one that I use every time I go over there. I never noticed any smell to it when I used it there, but when I brought it home it was very different. It smelled like my mom's house. Which is not a smell I could explain exactly, but it smells good and like her house. I remember thinking my husband must have thought I was a little bit crazy. For some reason I was so happy that it smelled like mom's house. I would lay down to g to sleep and feel like I was there. The smell faded over time of course, but now that it what I think of when I use it.

So now I think about that conversation with my little boy and think, one day he will catch a whiff of my perfume somewhere, and maybe it will make him feel like home. 

My Not so "Little" Baby

So this evening my oldest son, who is 8, said he wanted to be able to close his bedroom door when he is in there. Now I have never told him he couldn't, but he assumed so, and he has never expressed a want to close it before. I am fine with him closing his door. However, this is just one of many things here lately that signal his getting older. It is strange to say the least. When did this happen? When did my child become "older"? Just yesterday he was a "little kid" who needed me to do everything for him. Now he can get his own drinks. He can make his own breakfast and lunch if he wants to. I don't know if I am ready for this. He wants more control, as he says, over choices. He wants to pick what goes into his lunch for school. I know these seem like small things, and they are, but he is my baby. He knows music that he didn't hear in my car. He has independent opinions about things, including music, t.v., politics, and religion even. What happened? I used to talk to him about Handy Manny and pretty pictures he colored. Now I listen to him having conversations with his six year old brother about God vs. science. I am so proud of him and so freaked a the same time. Here we go into a new chapter. 

More From the Crazy People

This man makes my blood boil. It seems that is happening more and more these days. Where is he getting his information anyway? He must not have any real understanding of social security disability. Does he not realize how hard it is to get? It is a long painful process. One can not simply fake a few documents and receive money. It does not work that way. I have watched my step-father go through it. He is disabled. Once he started receiving it, after only one year he was denied again. BTW you can only apply twice. If you get turned down twice you are done, forever. So he had to fight like crazy to try and get it back. The man who needs help with his shoes was being watched by people in the bushes. They would take pictures in hopes of catching him do anything that would indicate that he could in fact go back to work. Sick! At the moment I do not even know how to respond to the horrific racism that oozes (and anyone who knows me knows how much I hate the word "oozes") throughout his remarks except to say how fitting that his last name be Cotton. Now the crazy and ignorant have a leader, Trump.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) suggested recently that population decline and drug abuse in poor areas could be the result of too many people on Social Security disability. Speaking to the conservative Heritage Foundation, Cotton warned that communities with a high percentage of residents on Social Security disability had reached a tipping point that was linked to population decline. But he said that communities which used fewer benefits were enjoying a population increase.

“When a county hits a certain level of disability usage, disability becomes a norm,” he continued. “It becomes an acceptable way of life and alternative source of income to a good paying full-time job as opposed to a last resort safety net program to deal with catastrophic injury and illness.”

“And guess which population has the highest number of members on Social Security disability? African-Americans, and typically ones residing in urban areas. In fact, there are widespread suspicions that faking injuries and falsifying documents in order to appear terminally ill is becoming an increasingly popular practice with unemployed and uneducated black people,” Cotton stated.

He also added that African-Americans seem to be taking things even further: “After a number of failed attempts by black people to fake their way into being classified eligible for disability, they have even started resorting to actually injuring themselves severely, so as to ensure and maximize their chances of being able to exploit the safety net that is Social Security.”

“They even have entire groups of people who are former marines, medical staff and other government-trained personnel, and who know how to inflict serious injuries without actually endangering the body’s elementary functions. And that’s just one example of the lengths black people are willing to go just to avoid working at a job. Their laziness must be genetic or something,” Cotton concluded.

My Search - Part 2

So as I posted about before, I have been searching for my birth siblings. Although I was raised as an only child, I am actually one of 8. I have known only one of them, my brother. My birth father had three other children besides me, two boys and one girl. My birth mother had four other children besides me, a boy and three unknown. Also remember that I was adopted by my birth mother's twin sister. So I remained in the family, but do not have much of a relationship with my birth mom.

I started with my birth father's side of the family first because I had a lot more information about him. I figured it would be easier, and it was. It took only a few days before I found them. I first spoke to his mother, my grandmother. That is still strange to say. Then I spoke to one of my aunts. Sadly, how I found them was through an arrest record pertaining to my oldest brother. It turns out he is kind of a mess and I have not spoken to him. I don't know that I will. I don't know if he would be interested. Plus, he is into drugs and I can not invite that into my world. The next brother is doing well. He is married with six children. He is a bit pensive about the whole thing though and I have yet to speak to him. I chatted with his wife a bit at first, but now nothing. I have been told it will take him awhile to come around. I hope he does at some point though. Next comes my sister! I can now say that, my sister, without sounding like I am trying to sound out a word in a foreign language. I have talked to her quite a bit. She is great! We are SO much alike. We were talking quite a bit for awhile, but now it has slowed down a lot. It is hard to turn strangers into family. I figure it will come over time.

Next I started searching for my birth mother's other children. She kept the youngest boy. He is the only one she kept. He just turned 21. I do have a relationship with him, but don't have much info on the rest. All I have is that two were born before me and one after. The one after was a girl and her father was African-American. I don't even have firm dates of birth. So I have added my name to adoptee lists all over. I hit a few dead ends. I did find one girl who sounds promising. She fits the where, the time frame, the sex and race. What little info she has about her birth mother also fits. I reached out to her and we talked a bit online. We were set to talk on the phone, but she got nervous. Now nothing. I told her to call me when she was ready to talk and we could go from there, but I have not heard anything from her. That was more than a month ago.

Well that's it I'm afraid. I have hit a dead end for now. I am trying to save some money to do DNA and sgn up with some of the sites that cost money. I set up a GoFundMe page, but no luck so far. The link is on the right side of my page here. 

Premenopausal Really?

So The women in my family have a tendency to start menopause early, in their 30's. I have always known this, but when I wasn't looking I became that age. I have been struggling with anxiety, but now I think it may be anxiety/hormone imbalance brought on by menopause. I have some other symptoms as well, some hot flashes, and messed up cycles. I just can not believe I am having this conversation. I am 34 years old.

I feel like this may also make the decision for me about having another baby. Not just because my body may not be up for creating one, but also mental health. If my anxiety is being driven to such an extreme that I can not go grocery shopping then what business is it of mine to have another baby? A crying, unpredictable, uncontrollable baby. Hmm.. but I still want one more. I can not seem to get passed that. I have an entire list of cons to having a baby, but I still want to. I am telling myself, almost begging myself to make the responsible choice. That it is not a good idea to strap ourselves financially again. I just don't know. Boy we ended up off topic.

Anyway, I think a new chapter may be starting in my life. Not really a welcomed one, but nonetheless. 

The End of Summer

Wow the summer has gone by so fast. It seems that time goes by faster and faster every year. I remember when I was a kid time seemed to stand still. I used to wish it away all of the time. My mother always told me to enjoy it because as I grew older it would start to fly by. Boy was she right. I was always in such a hurry to grow up, as most of us were I think. Now here I sit in my 30's with two school aged kids getting ready to go back to school. I watch them wishing time away. It seems like I blinked away a quarter of a lifetime. 

When I was a kid and young adult I lived in South Florida. I did not have kids. We did not have seasons. Everything seemed to just flow together. No time of the year seemed to really stand out. Now as a married woman with kids living in Virginia that is all different. There are many parts of the year. We have seasons and with the passing of each one brings a new set of things to do. New foods to make. New clothes to wear. I love it. It is August and we are getting ready for the kids to start school. My dogwood tree in the front yard has some orange leaves on it early. I am thinking about fall recipes. 

I went school shopping the other night. I mistakenly thought if I went to the store late, even on tax free weekend, that it would be less crowded. I was SO wrong. It was like mommy bumper cars in there at 11pm. They need a lot of supplies too. Six of this, seven of those, and so on and so on. I guess I should feel lucky they are still in elementary school. I have some friends with older kids and some of their supplies include $200 calculators! Yikes! I think I am finally done buying now. We have the supplies, the backpacks, clothes, shoes, and lunch boxes. So, are you ready yet? 

Holy Crap on a Cracker!

Ok so Arizona law maker Russell Pearce is...well he is a nut job. That is the nicest thing I can think to say. I do not understand these people who think that poor people are some how less of a human being just because they do not have money. It must be nice to have always had money and everything you needed or wanted right there. I am guessing he is one of the pro-life people I like to refer to as pro-pregnancy because they don't care about life, only pregnancy. Once a child is born they do not care about the feeding or educating or caring for medically. I think the genes running through him do not need to be replicated. Sick, just sick.

The far-right former lawmaker who helped push Arizona’s “papers please” immigration law has resigned as a top official with the state GOP after making comments about sterilizing poor women. The state Democratic Party recently highlighted comments made by Russell Pearce, a former state senator, on his radio show. Discussing the state’s public assistance programs, Pearce declared: “You put me in charge of Medicaid, the first thing I’d do is get Norplant, birth-control implants, or tubal ligations…Then we’ll test recipients for drugs and alcohol, and if you want to [reproduce] or use drugs or alcohol, then get a job.”

Several days later, commenting on his statement which caused widespread public outrage, Pearce stuck by his position, saying he didn’t understand  “what all the fuss was about,” adding “I was holding back pretty hard when I said what I did.” Asked to elaborate to see how far he would go, the former lawmaker argued, “Finding employment as a condition for having children, using alcohol and drugs is not even half of it. Right now our biggest problem are food stamps and that’s the part of the story nobody seems to want to deal with.”

“A lot of lazy people seem to have mistaken the government for a charity. That’s not how things were meant to work,” Pearce said. “And food stamps are draining the budget faster than it takes a drunkard to kill a bottle of whiskey. And this is not the case with Arizona alone, this is going on nationwide. We need to put this under control or else we’re looking at bankruptcy. And everybody is making jokes about it instead of trying to find a solution. Well, I have.”

Pearce then went on to explain how “we need to limit food stamp access to women who have been sterilized,” and how “that’s the only way of separating the ones who are willing to work for food from those who aren’t.” Asked whether that means women will, effectively, be made to give up the prospect of having children in the future simply because of the fact that they’re poor, the former state senator replied, “In order to be able to feed a baby, you first need to be able to feed yourself. That’s a pre-requisite in this case. What can I say, there’s no such thing as a free lunch.”

“Bottom line – if you want food stamps, you’re going to have to be sterilized,” Pearce summarized his proposition. “Of course, there’s also another aspect to this, perhaps even a more obvious one. If you’re already poor enough to be looking for food stamps, that means you’re incapable of being successful in our society for whatever reason. And if you’re unfit to be productive, and this might sound a bit harsh, but the fact to the matter is, we don’t need those kind of genes. We don’t need any more lazy people, so it’s actually a good thing you’ll have to be sterilized. Look, think of it in terms of being able to have all the unprotected sex you want without having to worry about pregnancy ever again. I’m telling you, it’ll be a hoot,” he concluded.