Demented Killer Bunnies. News At 11.

Yes, it's that time again. That special time of year when we load up our kids with enough sugar to send them into hyperglycemic convulsions and then set them loose on unsuspecting friends relatives who load them up with even more of those multi-colored egg-shaped hand grenades filled with even more of those fruit-flavored high fructose beans that cause the children themselves to explode on impact with any immovable object.

Yes, I love being a parent during these commercialized and candy-coated holidays when my children bounce higher than little rubber superballs in a centrifuge.

The only redeeming factor in all of this is when they come down from the chocolate-bunny high and pass out.

More later, I think my ceiling fan's become a tilt-a-whirl...

Plugs to the people!

This isn't something I've done to any great extent (ok, like once. Bite me.), but lucky you, I'm gonna start. There are just too many awesome blogs out there, and I've come in blog-contact with too many really cool bloggers I'd consider friends (even if only of the virtual kind).

So here goes: My mini review of a few (not all, I'll get to more later) blogs I love in no particular order:

First up is Tommy from Almost Average. Now this stuff is funny. And be sure to check out my personal favorite, the monkeys - no, not the group.

You'll also have to check out Does this Mean I'm A Grown-up? This one is definitely not your average Mommy blog. But if you do have kids, you'll definitely be able to relate.

Andrena from Heavenly Ankh is a great person. She does a lot to support real causes, and is also ordained! Plus, she's probably po'd at me for lapsing in my buddy-duties, so I gotta send her out a plug, just outta love, you know... Ahem.

Letti over at My Adventures in the US of A is one of my favorite places to read. She's from Malaysia and living in Texas. Talk about culture shock! Besides, she has some terrific recipes. Thank God for high metabolisms... I love my love affair with food.

On a more serious note, Please do check out No One's Child. Jeni is an amazing writer, and possibly soon in the process of a book deal. This is pretty heavy stuff dealing with child abuse issues, but it's very worth the read. If you haven't experienced this type of thing, you're lucky. If there were more awareness and education about the subject, more children might be saved from it. Jeni also has a personal blog, which is also worth checking out!

I'll be doing this quickie marathon blog-plugging thing again soon, but I think you have enough reading material to last you for a little while!

God help "The System"... They sure can't help themselves.

On the Thursday before Christmas, my daughter took her snowpants to kindergarten. Every day prior to this, she brought them home. I'd either wash them, or just stick them in the dryer so they'd be nice and fresh for her (and warm). I CANNOT afford to go out and buy new snowpants. YES, it's a couple of bucks... But trust me... Right now I do NOT have it.

A little background: At the beginning of the year, I turned in all my daughter's paperwork. A couple of months into the year, they'd already lost some of it. About a month later, they lost her physical forms. Ok, I have a MAJOR problem with this for two reasons:

1. I don't have the time to fill out multiple copies every time they lose crap.

2. How the HECK do they lose something that's in a freaking FILING CABINET??? Are they passing it around at the office??? WTF???

So Thursday afternoon before Christmas, my daughter comes home with no snowpants. I call, the teacher's already gone but I'll have to speak with her about it. Mind you, this is a phony, frustrating woman who uses her "kindergarten voice" to speak with EVERYONE (I swear I want to slap her every time she opens her mouth). So I have to wait a freaking WEEK to speak with her because of vacation.

I have spoken with her several times. My daughter has been borrowing her BIGGER brother's snowpants that really don't fit. So the teacher calls me today to tell me that it's a "requirement of the school that all children have snowpants, and they should fit appropriately." I want to strangle her.

My daughter loses gloves, etc. all the time. Yes, I filled out the paperwork, and even had a sit-down with the teacher (to which she had to invite a school counselor before she would say word one - poor people are dangerous, you know). I was never apologized to for the loss of the paperwork - which I got copies of at work, thank God (but they need originals). Instead, I was told that there might be a possibility I thought I'd turned it in, but forgotten... Not likely, since I'd had a conversation with a woman in the office to be sure certain things were filled out accurately.

Not to mention: in the beginning of the year they lost - drumroll please - my DAUGHTER. She had wandered off the playground. This was in the first week. THEN the NEXT week, when she was already set up for after school care, they had not taken her to the gym with the rest of the after school kids in the Y program, they instead called a SOCIAL WORKER because my little girl had not been picked up. They did this WITHOUT calling me at work. They called my cell, which did not get an answer, and then CLAIM they called my emergency contact and got a message it was not in service. Which my emergency contact herself thought was pretty funny.

My daughter is incredibly intelligent. She gets bored easily. On top of that, she has trust issues directly related to the molestation when she was a toddler. Her teacher insists that she's got ADD, but she's the only one of all the people who know my daughter well who seems to think so. I plan to have her tested anyway, but so far, she's had direct contact with professionals that simply see her as intelligent. And who have also met her teacher and have the same feelings toward the woman that I do: She's weird.

On a daily basis, my daughter is sent to speak with a counselor because the teacher says she doesn't have time to take her aside and speak with her. I'll bet being singled out does wonders for her social interaction and self esteem. But do you think I receive regular communication when the teacher does have problems? Not once. I have repeatedly told the school and her teacher that I need to know what's going on so that I can address it and offer my daughter some sort of consistency.

At one point, I found out - a couple of days after the fact - that my daughter had spent two hours in the nurse's office. She hadn't been feeling well. Do you think the school called me to let me know? Nope. Not even a note.

Another situation occurred when I had gone to pick her up and was told she was sent to the after school program. Why? Because MY DAUGHTER told them she was supposed to go there now. She's in Kindergarten. Wouldn't you think they'd call me to verify this? Of course not. They took my little girl's word for it instead.

Now here's the latest:

I usually help out a friend of mine who doesn't drive by taking her around to run whatever errands she has. Even so, I'm usually early to pick up my daughter from school. Yesterday, however, I was running late. My friend used her cell phone to call the school and let them know that we'd be about ten minutes late picking my daughter up, and to please hold her in the office until I got there.

I got to the school and went to the office. She wasn't there. NOBODY was there. I then went out to the playground. A few parents and their kids, but she wasn't there either. I went back to the office and the secretary was there. I asked her where my daughter was. She replied, "Oh, well I went out there right after you called and didn't see her. Maybe someone else picked her up." Ok. Now I'm a tad pissed.

"There IS nobody else to pick her up. I just told you I would be here in ten minutes." I was thinking: You'd better HOPE no-one else picked her up! I was livid. I went back down to the gymnasium to see if she was there. There is an after school program and she has friends there. Maybe she'd decided to go there with her friends.

She wasn't there.

At this point, I've hit panic stage. I raced home to see if she'd walked. We live only a few blocks away. As I pulled into the drive, I see my little girl at the neighbor's (my landlady). The poor kid is sobbing. She runs to me and clings on hard. I explained (quite colorfully, I might add) what had happened to the landlady and then took my friend home.

Today I spoke to the principal. There has been a complete lack of communication from the school to me for the entire year. There is no excuse. But this takes the cake. If I had said that I would be late and my daughter was missing, then by God, if she wasn't there when they checked the secretary should have called back (they have the number) to tell me. Anything could have happened. They are also aware that under no circumstances is my little girl to walk home. She is a daydreamer and could easily get lost.

I'm so close to completely withdrawing her and doing either homeschool or a charter school. One would think that the public school system would be a bit more serious about their jobs. They take violence in schools seriously. In my opinion, this circumstance is directly related to the well-being of the children in their care. I would like to know that I can feel safe when my daughter is there.

New Beginnings

Endings are really new beginnings in disguise. It might take a long time for the realization to surface and the short-term consequences can be painful, but the long-term effects can far outweigh the initial hurt. The following may be disturbing to some individuals.

My mother was a teenager when I was born and never really knew my biological father. I spent most of the first five years of my life living with my grandparents. I was often told that they considered me the ninth of their eight children. Although they weren't rich at the time, I was given pretty much whatever I wanted. I was spoiled to the nth power. I had always thought the attention was out of affection. Later, the truth would come out and it would prove to be so devastating that I nearly wouldn't recover from the emotional blow.

My mother was what one might consider rebellious. She dated a lot and there were times I wouldn't see her for extended periods. I know that part of it was her need to feel loved and accepted, and that it came from her own childhood experiences. I also know that a part of her resented me, both because of the consequences of bearing a child as an unwed teenager and the fact that many men would shy away from a woman with a child.

My life with my grandparents was filled with everything any child could hope for: I had playrooms filled with any toy I wanted, trips to places like Disneyland and elaborate birthday parties. I spent much time in my grandmother's kitchen learning and experimenting, time in my grandfather's garage playing with the tools and scraps of wood and in the garden finding buried treasure and occasionally helping to plant. I spent hours playing in our yard climbing the fence, swinging on the gate, climbing the trellis or hanging from the trees.

My mother's relationship with my grandparents was volatile, at best. There were constant battles, of which I was many times the center of attention. I began to feel trapped in the middle at a very young age. My grandparents would belittle my mother to me, and my mother would tell me that my grandparents were bad and that I wouldn't understand. And then she would leave me with them - a few occasions were for literally months at a time.

My mother finally ended that cycle when we rented a house by ourselves. It was wonderful at first: I would walk from school to where she worked and she'd let me play on her typewriter or color. We'd go to Burger Chef for kiddie meals or to the A&W Drive-In for chili dogs. I reveled in the attention she gave me that I'd craved for so long.

My mother still dated, but I still wasn't exposed much to the men in her life. For the most part I didn't like them, either. One man was a truck driver with long, bushy hair and a thick beard and mustache. He made my mother laugh and they partied a lot, but I thought he was mean and callous. He ignored my baby sister and me much of the time.

One night when I was seven, I was groggily aware of someone wrapping me up in the blankets of my bed while it was still dark. I remember being confused and afraid as I was carried out to the car along with my sister. We drove for what seemed to be forever. Then my three-year-old sister made everyone laugh when she stood up on the seat and yelled, "Wook at all da mow-tens!" My mother and her new boyfriend had moved us to Virginia, and I was told we were "escaping" my grandparents, who (they said) were terrible people.

It was a picturesque area, but our lives were not so beautiful as our surroundings. My mother married the truck driver soon after our arrival. What began as possessiveness and control quickly turned abusive. My mother was beaten enough to be hospitalized several times. My sister and I were often the targets of his rage, as well. We began to relish those times when my step-father was gone on a long over-the-road trip in his truck.

My mother never made an attempt to intervene or even seek help with what was going on. He would be especially cruel when my mother wasn't around, but she'd brush those instances off to his frustration with our disobedience. How, I wondered, was it ok for this man to punish my baby sister for her lapses in potty-training by washing her mouth out with her own excrement? Or for both my mother and this man to pull us from our beds as we slept and spank us hard enough to leave handprints on our bare bottoms because they'd thought in their drunkenness that we were "faking it"?

My step-father's abuse continued even through my mother's next pregnancy. My mother finally eventually left him and moved back to Indiana with my grandparents. It wasn't long before the fights with them once again ensued. My step-father begged my mother's forgiveness and he moved back to Indiana.

Nothing changed after the reconciliation of my mother and step-father. We moved several times to different neighborhoods for various reasons, and by the time I reached Junior High I'd gone to six elementary schools.

Even though my sister and I (my brother was exempt from the rages, since he was my step-father's own child and the "only boy") were slapped, punched, and thrown around like rag dolls, I couldn't get an adult to listen. I was told I was being rebellious or even lying when I would try to tell teachers and counselors at school. At one point, it was suggested that my parents send me to a therapist. My mother and step-father told them that I made up stories for attention. The consensus was that I was "disturbed".

The worst of the fights between my parents came on New Year's when I was twelve. My mother ended up in the hospital's intensive care unit for four months with fractures in her skull, broken ribs, a punctured lung and dozens of other injuries. My step-father ended up in jail for six months. My sister, brother and I stayed with my grandparents. Still, my mother took him back and despite several attempts to leave, has stayed with him to this day. I found out recently the abuse has continued on.

The one truly good experience I had during my mother's marriage came when we moved to Connecticut. It was beautiful there, and the only place I truly felt at home. Even through the verbal and physical abuse of my home life, I found escape through drama classes, choir practices and hiking the gorgeous area around where we lived. Still, my home life became too much to bear and I made the decision to leave. I moved in with my best friend's parents until I could make the trip to Wisconsin, where my grandparents now lived.

It was about a year after the move that I met my now ex-husband. Our relationship had two extremes: half the time we were the best of friends and the other half was as violent as my life with my parents. It took me seven years to gather the courage to leave.

The last night my grandfather was alive I was there, holding his hand. I told him that I loved him and that I'd miss him. He died a few hours later. I called my mother and told her that he was gone, to which she replied "Good, he's finally going to get what he deserves." I was furious. How could she say such a thing? She merely said "Shan, you have no idea what we went through."

I snapped, as all the hurt from my childhood boiled up inside me. "No, Mother. I'll tell you who had a rough childhood. We did, Mother. We got the shit knocked out of us on a daily basis while you sat back and pretended nothing happened. We had to watch while HE damn near killed you and were asked to forgive and forget and pretend nothing happened. We were the ones that went through shit." My mother simply hung up. We didn't speak again for almost three years.

I had always known that I had been molested as a child, but never knew who the perpetrator was. Everyone in the family pointed the finger at someone else, depending on who was on the "shit list" in any given week. The year my oldest daughter was born, I began a sexual abuse therapy group that would last twelve weeks.

The group was difficult, as I didn't have the vivid memories that everyone else shared. What I did have was a recurring nightmare: I was a small child in a long, narrow bed in a dark room. A man's silhouette would appear in the doorway, and the next thing I saw was his hands near my face. I would wake up feeling scared, dirty and violated; sometimes screaming.

Toward the end of the group's course of meetings, I had been working on one of our "homework" projects and sat thinking about the nightmare, trying to concentrate enough to see the face. Suddenly, it was as if my dream-eyes had adjusted to the light. I recognized the room as the one I'd slept in at my grandparent's home. The realization that the man I'd thought of for so long as my personal hero and father figure was the one who'd done so much damage to me as a small child younger than five. And it was my grandmother who had instigated it.

I first called my grandmother's home. My cousin answered, and I asked her if what I thought was true. She calmly replied, "Well, yeah, Shanna. Everyone knew that."

"Why the hell didn't anyone tell me all this time?" I asked furiously. She rather sarcastically retorted, "Shanna, that was over twenty years ago, why would you need to know all that now? He's a different man. He changed. Just move on and forgive and forget." I hadn't realized how sick my family was until that very moment.

The next call I made was to my mother. I told her everything and we cried, sharing disgusting family stories. Neither of us realized the other had gone through such similar experiences. Maybe it was that we were just too close to the situation to face reality. I don't know.

Last year my family made amends after 23 years. My mother began speaking to my grandmother again. I was the odd one out, which was pretty typical of my later childhood. My usefulness had run out, and I had spoken out against the inner circle.

I've spent much of my life either seeking approval from my family or trying to prove them wrong. So much so that I've messed up in my endeavors more than succeeded in them. It became a cycle that quickly spiraled so far down that I no knew who I was or what I wanted for myself. So much time was spent worrying about what everyone else wanted or what they might think that there wasn't anything left for myself.

I finally disowned my family just before Christmas. It was the healthiest decision of my adult life.

The "Ten Things I've Done That You Probably Haven't" Meme

Courtesy of Michele.

Yeah, I know... I'm a late bloomer, get over it.

So, I:

1. Lived by the Blue Ridge, the Berkshires, in a town called Tippecanoe, and in Houdini's birthplace.

2. Went to nine schools growing up. Not including college.

3. Have a child who was both the reason for the title and the model for a public service campaign.

4. Spoke with Sara Mclachlan's husband Ash.

5. Went to high school with a now-famous tenor - and acted with him in Drama classes.

6. Met a famous basketball personality at the brink of his career and later went to the same high school that launched said career.

7. Have a relative who is a self-made multi-millionaire, who also built much of a now-popular tourist area we once lived in.

8. Have a sister who is a famous ballet dancer... Who I've spoken to and had lots in common with growing up, but have never met or seen a clear picture of. My other sister (whom I've also never met) has the same first and middle name as my high school best friend.

9. Made a popular football star laugh after lunch, just before he went off to play basketball (of all things) for charity.

10. Had to take self-defense as a part of gym class in junior high, and the guys training us happened to have been taught by a well-known, accomplished and respected teacher in the area - my uncle.

Ok, so they're a little lame....

Hunting Fluffy

Here in Wisconsin hunting is a big deal. Not just a hobby to the locals, hunting is a way of life here. To some, hunting takes precedence over spending the holidays with children and immediate family.

Fluorescent orange is a popular fashion color choice among both sexes, and there are certain times of year you can see a sea of bright, jumper-wearing people armed like it's D-Day all headed north on the highway. A few days later, the opposite side of the highway is clogged with the same beer-logged and weary travelers headed back... This time proudly donning bloody, furry corpses atop their cars or in the beds of their trucks.

Hunting as a subject of the local news is not an unusual thing. There are the minor headlines, like seasons being extended. There are the inevitable bigger headlines when someone is accidentally shot, or someone goes "postal" while hunting.

But I have personally never seen the likes of this story ever before. Definitely a new one.

Seems an obviously chipper sort of fellow got a bee in his bonnet and decided, "Gee, Mrs. Potter's cat sure does pinch my johnnies when he plays with the BIRD FEEDER. Maybe we oughta pass a law to whack them kitties when they jump the fence." And got to work on having a proposal to have outdoor pets of the feline variety considered an unprotected species huntable under small-game hunting licenses.

Now, I've mentioned before my dislike of much in this culturally back-assward state. But this takes the cake. I mean I was here a year and I have to deal with some wacky-wonka chocolate factory serial-killing cannibal and then the coldest winter since the freaking ice age with wind-chills at eighty below zero Fahrenheit, and now they want to off Morris if he goes outside to pee and wanders next door?!?

Calgon, take me away!

Long time, no post. Yes, I know it's been awhile. Things have been a little (understatement alert) busy around here lately. And it's been one of those rare times I haven't felt all too talkative. Feel grateful. Really. These times are truly rare. Besides, you know you needed the vacation!

Speaking of vacations, I think I need one. A vacation from my vacation, so to speak. Anyone up for Disneyland?

I went there once, when I was four. Yes, I do remember parts of the trip. But, quite honestly, my ideal getaway would be a visit to New England. In the spring it's absolutely incomparable. Imagine the fresh sea air, the gorgeous rolling Berkshires for a backdrop, the woodland filled with tiger lily and remnants of the colonial fieldstone walls and trickling springs running down rocky hillsides.

One of my favorite pastimes was hiking. Not the lug-a-lot-of-expensive-equipment kind. I'd go in my tennis shoes and walk or climb for hours. My favorite spot was a state park called Devil's Hopyard. This place had the most amazing waterfalls, which my best friend and I loved to climb (which technically wasn't allowed - not that we cared). It also had quite a history in local folklore, which made it even more fun to explore.

Even just outside our back door the views were incredible. We had boulders between 6- and 7-feet high, lilac bushes just as tall and several miles of forest stretching out from our backyard, as well as several acres in the front across the small country road where we lived and on one side of our house all the way to our neighbors'. I used to love going outside with a book and park myself on the top of one of our boulders facing the back woods. I'd usually do more staring into the trees than reading. The views were breathtaking.

I miss that practical, no-nonsense "back East" attitude and that sarcastic (yet not caustic) New England wit. Easterners are fiercely strong-willed and tightly knit. But they are also very welcoming. They take things in stride and make real effort to get to know new neighbors.

Tourists are another thing entirely and are generally looked upon as a necessary but unwelcome evil. Well, that might be a bit crass. But New Englanders do love their privacy.

My first trip out East was the summer before we moved there from Indiana. I was sixteen and it was love at first sight. I had never seen the ocean before (well, in Florida at age four, but let's be serious) and played in the waves like a toddler in the bathtub. The locals showed off their collections of sea glass to my siblings and I... And we were enthralled.

I still miss Connecticut very much. I felt more at home there than anywhere else I've been. Ah, well... There's always the occasional vacation.