It's Been a Couple of Weeks

You may notice it's been a couple of weeks since my last blog post. Let me explain.

I used to work at a local residential/teaching facility for adults with MR/DD (mental retardation and developmental disabilities). It was at once the most fulfilling and most frustrating jobs I have ever had. Would I go back to it, after two separate OTJ attack injuries in 2010 and a year and a half of Workmens' Comp? In a heartbeat. Will I? Not until the administration changes ... RADICALLY.

When I started there, I learned during training that I would be going to one of the "rougher" homes. The residents were mostly higher-functioning men. We took a "crisis management" course and learned methods to, if possible, de-escalate situations before they became physical. They worked about 50 pct of the time. Anyway, I made my peace with the fact at some point I would get injured on the job ... and that somehow made it easier, less scary.

From the beginning there was one resident, Shawn, whom it seemed nobody wanted to be assigned. Truth be told, I felt a little sorry for him. Then I found out why staff felt the way they did. Five times in the next six months I filled out IA1 paperwork for an on-the-job injury, caused by Shawn. (The space of a whole blog may not be enough to contain his whole story, let alone a single post, so suffice it to say that there were things in his history that made some of his less endearing behavior, although not excusable for an adult capable of independent thought, at least partially explainable. Shawn was far from the stereotypical "defenseless" adult with mental retardation...ask the folks at the local Walmart eye center.)

I thought that many of the "professional" staff enabled him terribly, treating him as a textbook case, rather than an individual. Once, a behavior analyst told me to give being Shawn's staff over to co-worker, and pulled me outside to try and explain why Shawn did what he did, that he wasn't able to do recognize boundaries, etc etc etc. I related to her that Shawn had told me once that he ran the house and everyone there had to do what he said. "And," I added to the analyst and psychiatrist who was standing nearby, "he was right!"

A week or so later, I found a letter behind my timecard that indicated "for the good of the residents I was being transferred to another home". Bullcookies.

In the middle of a huge wave to transfer residents into group homes, Shawn was sent to a small rural community with two other high-functioning male residents. The first time I heard that I could barely believe it. Every man they mentioned seemed to make a practice out of being "the biggest and baddest". I didn't figure it would end well.

Well, it ended one night in May. Shawn was rushed to the hospital where he was pronounced dead. A staff person said he found one of the other residents on top of Shawn, choking him. This man was arrested and charged with murder, but later released as the police found new evidence. Autopsy results showed that he died from internal abdominal bleeding, which lead police to believe that the staffperson was not being honest, and they wound up charging him with homicide and gross negligence. He is currently out on bail.

I was not there that night, so I cannot say, with certainty, what happened. I want to believe that this staff person (for whom there has been a groundswell of community support) would not be stupid enough to go past stopping Shawn's violent behavior to the point of killing him. And, while admitting that there are cases of abuse that happen in this setting, I know that the system is set up with so many rules that home staff cannot help but cross some of them, and so are deemed by management to be the "guilty ones" in cases where a resident is injured.

Here is what I do know. I did not like Shawn. After getting over my outrage at the reason why I was transferred to a different home, I came to see that it was a blessing, in part because I would no longer have daily interaction with Shawn. Would I, even now, stand between Shawn and someone else to (try and?) prevent harm from either person to the other, even if it meant getting injured myself? Yes.

Did Shawn deserve to die like he did?

No.

Taking the Pledge - Day Four

This marks my fifth day of "The Mom Pledge:

I stand up against cyber bullying. My online space reflects who I am and what I believe in. I will not tolerate comments that are rude, condescending or disrespectful.

Also my first week of participation in:

I invite anyone reading to join me in either of both groups, accessible by handy dandy links and/or buttons. :O)

*+*+*+*+*

I am a born care-taker, as evidenced by advocating for my children when they were in public school. Also the best 'outside of the home' job I ever had was assisting adults with mental retardation and/or developmental disabilities learn/improve ADL's (activities of daily living) and social skills that most of us take for granted.

Like so many people, I find it easier to stand up for the people about whom I care, rather than for myself...but I'm working on that one!

When my oldest son, now 14 was in public school, both he and his parents came up against bullying of one sort or another. DS1 had been suggested as having either ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) or possibly Asperger's Syndrome. He spent most of his day in the 'regular' classroom, but some time in a smaller room with only 3-4 other children for certain subjects. In the main classroom, his teachers normally separated his desk from the other children and sometimes had dividers up ... to cut down on things that might distract him. That, coupled with his seeming inability to recognize the amount of personal space needed by other children, often made him a target for teasing or bullying.

The straw that broke the camel's back for us was in the week before the last week of school, four of his 8-year-old classmates surrounded him on a piece of playground equipment and pulled his pants down, showing...everything. He pulled his pants back up. These boys did the same thing two more times before there was any intervention. There were 3 teachers on the playground, who said none of them saw anything was wrong....but 3 classrooms of children apparently did.

Our son was removed from the classroom. The other boys (all of whom later admitted their actions) were not. We parents were not notified until several hours later, after the school had conducted an "investigation". Justifiably enraged, my husband went to school to collect our son and talk with the principal...who was "suddenly called away", and he spoke with the vice-principal.

The school was engaged in state-mandated testing that week, and so the other boys were not suspended, or even given detention of any sort. The school wanted the money and pats on the back from the government for having a greater percentage of their students taking the tests.

As relatively little action was taken by the school for what was, in my mind, a sexually-oriented assault on our son, we went to the FWISD (Fort Worth Indepndent School District), who apparently contacted the school ... because the next day, the principal was "available" to meet. I was working days at the time, so DH handled the meeting for us. When he entered the principal's office, she apparently said something to the effect of, "How dare you go over my head to the district." The nerve! Things went downhill from there. I remember saying to my husband when he called me at work that we had better watch ourselves, because I felt the school would take retaliatory action.

The next week, as President of the school's PTA, myself, my husband and our daughter (about 2 at the time) went to assist with the school's "Field Day", passing out popcorn and drinks to the students. We were there for hours and all had a good time, boys included (the son in this story and DS2, who was in 1st grade at the time).

About an hour after we got home from the school, there was a knock on the door. Who do you think it was? The (not-so) friendly CPS (Child Protective Services) agent, wanting to come into our apartment because she had received a report that DS1 had "exposed himself" on the playground. We gave her the facts, including our belief that the report was retaliatory on the part of the school, which she wrote down, in the middle of trying to threaten us to be allowed into the apartment. (As we had been investigating homeschooling for some time, and had talked on several occasions to the HSLDA (Home School Legal Defense Association - by the way, that organization ROCKS!), we knew that we were within our rights to deny her entrance. Not even the police could enter our home without just cause and/or a warrant.

We had actually been on our way out the door, but she refused to leave until she had spoken to each of the boys individually and without our presence. Well, DS1 was savvy enough even at that young age to understand the ramifications of what this woman's presence meant, and we had to peel him off my leg as he had sat down on the floor and wrapped himself around me. He did not want to talk to the woman, a sentiment which he came up with on his own. DH came up with a workable solution, that DS1 and the CPS agent would sit at the top of the stairs and we would be by the car, but our son would still be able to see us.

That summer we moved to Kentucky. How the CPS agent found my husband's grandmother's phone number I'll never know, but she called Mamaw, lied and said she was a friend of ours and wheedled our phone number out of the woman. But nothing ever came of it, because we were not in the wrong in that situation. It still burns the you-know-what out of me, though, and this has been six years ago.

So, I know a little about the effects of bullying and I will not stand for it.

Online, or cyber-bullying can be just as awful. While I have not (that I can remember) been a target yet, I have seen it go on and have seen what it can do to people. The news headlines have elaborated on how cyber-bullying can even be deadly.

So, if someone comes into my online "house" intent on being a troll, I will ask them, nicely, to leave. If they will not, I offer them some friendly and honestly well-meaning advice direcly from the Boy Scout motto ... be prepared.

52 Home Organization Projects

I've been reading Laura's "I'm an Organizing Junkie" blog for a while now, in part because my own organizing desires are lightyears ahead of my organizing skills. Ugh. A link from her post today lead me to this umbrella project:

So, without further ado, here is my list:

1. my computer desk

2. DH's computer table

3. couch area in living room

4. outer wall in living room

5. inner wall in living room

6. refrigerator

7. over the counter kitchen cabinets

8. under the counter kitchen cabinets

9. kitchen table

10. laundry area

11. linen closet

12. medicine cabinets

13. sink area in bathroom

14. shower area in bathroom

15. hallway

16. closet in boys' room

17. bed area in boys' room

18. couch area in boys' room

19. media area in boys' room

20. bed area in girl's room

21. dresser in girl's room

22. media area in girl's room

23. closet in my bedroom

24. bed area in my bedroom

25. media area in my bedroom

26. back porch

27. front porch

28. menu plans

29. family budget

30. childrens' budgets

31. chore charts

32. review/revamp homeschooling plans

33. extended family birthday (etc) calender

34. family volunteer projects

35. individual volunteer projects

36. time schedule for my business

37. time schedule for my blogging

38. time schedule for my Facebook addiction.

39. recording family history

40. me time

41. garden plan for 2012

42. pest-proofing the home

43. quality time with DH.

44. quality time with DS1.

45. quality time with DS2.

46. quality time with DD.

47. learn a new skill

48. community project

49. family recycling plan.

50. family vacation plan.

51. community activism plan.

52. kitchen counters.

I reserve the right to modify the above list as necessary. :O)

This is also my entry for this weeks Friendly Friday Blog Hop:

Go and visit some of the other bloggers and share your info!

CountDown to the BIG 50!

On October 2nd of this year (that's 10 days away folks) I will turn 50 years old. When I was young, I had trouble wrapping my mind around the fact that I would be 39 in the year 2000. Remember how "Y2K" was such a big event before New Year's Day and, dangitall, the earth didn't grind to a halt? Back then 39 seemed awfully old. (Like Radar in M*A*S*H said once, "I'll be in my 30's...THAT'S ALMOST DEAD!" *rofl*

I'm also entering this post in the following blog hop:

Isn't that a great graphic? The thought that popped into my head was that I haven't been that skinny since puberty hit. Anyway there are other great posts on the hop so go check it out

And easy division to make would be to cover 10 years in a post...and I'm all over easy these days. So, here goes:

I was born in Monaca, PA, USA, which if I remember correctly is about 30 miles north of Pittsburgh, in 1961. The only thing I remember about that place is visiting there with my family at some point before I turned 10. It seemed to be one of those teeny-weenie towns that you miss if you blink. Before my first birthday, my family moved to Cumberland, MD, where we lived until January 1972.

There are still a few scattered memories from those years. I remember sitting on the couch at some point before my 2nd birthday, my father kneeling in front of the couch with his forearms resting on the couch and my brother (then 2-3 yo) riding piggy-back. I suppose I remember that because there is a picture in the family photo album. I have kind of inherited that role of family memory-keeper as both my parents have passed on and it's just not a priority to my brother. I also remember my 2nd birthday party, because I got on of those pull-along phones where the eyes roll up and down as you walk. There's a picture of that too, with me holding the receiver out to my mother because it was for her.

Other memories, in random order, because I'm just trying to get them down for now (organization comes later), so I can free up brain power to remember other things ... like where I put my keys, last week, and my kids names ... stuff like that:

Being paired up with the neighbor boy (in a kind of "ooh, aren't they cute together" sort of way that moms have (and that seems totally reasonable to me...now.

Losing control of my tricycle going down the hill by our house and crashing into the neighbor's yard at the end of the block.

Being hustled downstairs in the middle of the night with my brother, by our father, and hearing our mother upstairs screaming in pain. She went to the hospital that night. She never would talk about it later, except for to say that the doctors had deemed surgery necessary for her survival one weekend, and no surgery because "it was gone" early the next.

I remember being invited by a family friend to go swimming at their country club (not that we were well off by any means, but that's not the point. Walking up to the ramp to the clubhouse, there was a sign by the door, "No Catholics allowed." Even then, if I had known what "WTF" meant I probably would have thought it. I wouldn't dare saying it out loud, because no sooner had those words left my lips but I would be over my mother's knee.

Not all the memories were bad, though, and this list is FAR from exhaustive.

When my 5th grade teacher, Miss Shaner, found out that we were moving, she had each of my classmates write a story about my soon-to-pass adventures in the "wild west". (My father's company transferred him from MD to UT.) One story that sticks out had me saving my older brother from disaster at the bottom of the Grand Canyon! Ahhh, I was a super kid!

My mother was born in Switzerland, and met my father at the University of West Virginia in Morgantown, where she was a nanny for a local prominent family. In the summer of 1971 we were fortunate enough to travel to see her homeland, with a stopover in England to visit her brother and family, who were living there at the time.

My mother and I were outside Buckingham Palace one morning watching the Changing of the Guards. There was a large crowd and it was difficult to negotiate the sea of people and meet up with my dad and brother at our next destination. Mom said I just took her hand and followed a "bunch of hippies" that were passing through easily. That memory makes me smile.

My brother and I participated in the "Erste August" (1st of August) lampion (paper lantern) parade in Bern, Switzerland's capital. At the end of the parade, each child got a gingery cake-let with a picture of a bear on it. We were sitting at an outside cafe afterwards, when the father in the family friends with whom we were staying came up with a 2nd cake for my brother and me. He told the folks he had two children visiting from the US and he didn't think we had gotten our cakes yet.

On that visit to Switzerland, I discovered my taste for "Vivi-Cola" and "OvoSport". OvoSport is kind of like pressed bars of ovaltine...that's the best I can describe it anyway. Another memory from that time (which literally just popped back into the foreground of my mind after how many years gone) was in a cafe in a mountain village, my brother ordered a Coke float and the waitress, nor indeed any of the staff, and any clue as to what he was talking about. So he explained you put ice cream and Coke together in a glass. So they brought out a mug of Coke and a small dish of ice cream. If that village had had a newspaper I'm sure it would have made front-page news when my brother scandalized the locals by placing the ice cream in the soda!

We went to Washington DC on vacation at one point. There is a picture of my brother and me, standing in front of some building with dark glasses on. I call that our "FBI Agents" picture. We visited the Smithsonian where he was all about planes, trains and automobiles and I was all about the Hope Diamond, the First Ladies' inaugural dresses and Dorothy's Ruby Slippers.

All of a sudden, 10 years seems an awful lot of ground to cover in one blog post. But dates are a little fuzzy without memory prompts and goodness knows I don't want anyone's coffee spilling on their keyboard because they have fallen asleep on me! *lol*

Years 11-20 will probably show up tomorrow or the day after. I'm currently working on another blog series about "The Mom Pledge"...just in case you are interested, it starts here. I'm also going to link those posts together, which is something new for me. Heck, writing four blog posts in a month is something I haven't done in ages...by my life isn't over yet!

My 5 Question Friday

1. Can you drive a stick shift?

Yes, I learned on a stick shift when taking driver's ed. Although....I remember going out to the driving range and asking for the red car, which had an automatic transmission. They gave me the keys for the darker red car...which was a stick. My partner did not know how to drive a stick either, so we opened the textbook and figured it out that way! *lol*

2. What are two foods you just can't eat?

beef tongue and habanero (sp?) peppers

3. Do you buy Girl Scout Cookies? What is your favorite kind?

Usually...all time favorite is the Thin Mint, although some of their newer ones are quite tasty too.

4. How do you pamper yourself?

What is this pamper you speak of?

5. What is your nickname and how did you get it?

Well, my given names are "Lucille Anna". I've always gone by LuAnn. I've also been called (at different times): Lulubelle, Lu-A, Lucy and Lulu. So now I just tell people I answer to anything that starts with "Lu".

What I Do and Do Not Miss About High School

This one is kind of tough for me. Sometimes I can hardly remember last week, or yesterday, and they want me to remember high school? Yikes!

I miss some of the people (both students and teachers). I think it's kind of strange that some of my classmates have grandchildren that are the ages of my children (yep, I was an older first-time mom). I miss the feeling that I had more days ahead of me than I do behind. In my senior year, I was on the school paper staff...that was fun.

I don't miss being overweight and painfully introverted.

However, something happened in high school that probably overshadowed anything else "bad" that may have happened. About four months before graduation, my father came home sick from work one day. That was unusual because he was so type "A". A week later he passed away (stroke/heart attack) at the age of 47. I was in a play called "Lazarus Laughed" by Tennessee Williams (I think?) at the time, so the whole theme was like, 'there is no death'. Even in our church community at the time, social invitations kind of dried up after that...like people were afraid death was catching or something.

Yup, I could've done without most of that.

I'm not usually this maudlin, so I'm going to close out this post and go think about my daughter's 8th birthday on 2/2.

Blog Hopping Weekend!

I'm kind of new to the world of blog hops, so when I found the "Fun Weekend Blog Hop" hosted by Raven of "Pumps, Pacifiers and the World" I had to get my hoppin' shoes on! WAHOO!

I've had 3 children and pumped for all of them. I nursed the first two. My daughter was born at 32 weeks and they tube fed her for a while...long enough so that she never took to nursing, but I still pumped, so she got breast milk. Her 8th birthday is next week...and she is VERY excited! *lol*

Like Joanna of "Figuring Out the Small Stuff", I hate having to give something a numerical rating as a measure of value. It rates right up there with the questions "Does this make me look fat?" and, "So what do you think of my new boyfriend?" ;)

Another new bloggy friend I made today is Jacqueline of "Chez Mukweto". Like me, she educates her children at home. She is also my new crafting idol.

I'm a bit jealous of MizReviewLady at "Mommy Reviews and More" because of her new socks. You'll have to visit her to find out why! *hahaha*

So...what's new in my life?

At the end of September, I was kicked in the knee at work (a residential/teaching facility for adults with MR/DD). A week ago Monday I finally had an operation and I'm recuperating from that. I'm sore and grouchy...but my family has been great, picking up the slack and all. A lady from church even brought over supper one day last week to help out.

So while the pain and lower income kind of, well, suck, I have had more time to spend with my family. I went to work the week after DD came home from the hospital and with one or two exceptions, I have been working since she was born and feel like I have missed so much. So this time is very, very precious to me.