Destitute

He stands on the grassy verge, just outside the perimeter of the grocery store parking lot. Tall and skeletal in stature, his dirty clothes literally hanging on his bony frame.

His hair is long and matted, his beard equally so. What is visible of his face is weathered, leathered and brown.

He stands here in all weathers, in the light and in the dark. Sometimes he holds a card which I've never been able to read, but I already know that it says 'Homeless, please help, God Bless'.

When I see him, my stomach tightens, gripped with a mixture of confusing feelings. How did he get to be this way? And, what is my responsibility towards him?

I have never reached out to this man and for that I feel guilty, but my fear outweighs the feelings of guilt most days.

He is one of many panhandlers I see, in various situations, regularly at busy intersections. Some I want to cry for. Others I want to scream at to go look for a job because they look plenty healthy and fit to me. Others still I want to call the cops on because before my very eyes they straighten up from their half naked, bent over position, set down their sign which says 'please help, disabled Vet.',pull on a shirt, walk when they'd previously hobbled, to their bicycle and cycle off when their 'begging shift' is over.

I struggle with the question 'what am I supposed to do for these people?' Are we not taught that we should help those less fortunate than ourselves? But, this is America - and while drug and alcohol abuse is not unknown in Ireland - it's not as prevalent, nor as obvious as it sometimes is here. And so, afraid that these people could be hopped up on any combination of substances, or that any assistance I offer will be used to procure more of said substances, I keep my windows closed, my gaze straight ahead and I do nothing. I contribute to the collection each week at Mass, and that is the only way I have salved my conscience thus far, on the understanding that that donation will be used in some way to help those less fortunate.

The grocery store beggar makes me think much more than any other I've seen. Perhaps because it's not that far from our cosy home in our nice neighbourhood with the great golf club across the road. Maybe it's because I pass him in a big comfortable car with my well fed children safely cocooned in the back. I find myself wondering if he has, or had a family. Is he a victim of a series of unhappy circumstances that have led him to this? If he's brought this on himself? Is he an alcoholic, or a drug addict? If he had a job, a home, people who cared. He looks so lonely, beaten, pathetic and absolutely destitute.

I have been thinking of him almost constantly since yesterday afternoon when I saw him again. This time he was standing a little way away from his grocery store post, on another grassy verge. Surrounded by two Sherrif's cruisers, he was handcuffed, and a lady Deputy was donning latex gloves, presumably to search him. I don't know what he did. If he had an altercation with passersby? Was this part of their attempt to 'move him along'. Was he high on something?

All I know is that my stomach is again tight with those confusing and uncomfortable feelings. I am afraid to reach out to panhandlers. I don't know what kind of reaction I'll get, I don't want to feed an already destructive habit by helping fund it but I know I must do SOMETHING. And, I will - I just need to figure out how.

Why the Whys?

Dear Internet,

This is an earnest plea for help. My sanity, and possibly my daughter's safety, (well, not really) depend on it!

Why the whys? Why when a child hits three does this magically increase the frequency of the question 'why?', and how does this explosion of curiosity on topics to which the whys refer, occur?

These, surely, are not difficult questions? No more difficult than say,

'Mommy, why is there fire?',

'but why does it burn?',

'why did the fire light?',

'Mommy why did you stop?',

'but why is the light red?'

'but why can you not go when the light is red?'

'but why do the other cars come the other way?'

'Mommy, why are we going to the Mall?' (can you believe I have a daughter who asks this?)

'Why do we need to go shopping?'

'Why are the clouds in the sky?'

'Why are the clouds that shape?'

'Why can't I walk and not go in the stroller?'

'But why?' 'Why? 'WHY?'

WHY WHY WHY ad infinitum!

It's driving me NUTSO! So, dear internet, if you have any good solid answer that would head the incessant interrogation off at the pass I would appreciate it if you would kindly share.

Yours, holding my breath in anticipation,

Annie, on the bring of stark raving madness.

Britney's got nothing on me!

Today, while my back was turned, Baby J fell out of his highchair.

To all those people who asked when the media went to town on Britney Spears for this very thing, 'How can a mother let this happen?' Let me tell you.

She can let it happen when she's stupid.

When she carelessly and complacently assumes that her baby will be fine for the few moments her back is turned.

When she has the fabric cover and the straps of the highchair off, to be washed, so her baby is hemmed in only by the tray of the chair.

When she thinks the tray is enough to keep him safe.

When she takes a chance that no mother should ever take - especially when she knows what a climber her baby is turning out to be. They don't put the straps on there for no reason!


He seems fine, after a lot of crying and repeated head to toe examinations of him for lumps and bumps I'm satisfied that he did not hit his head (on the ceramic tile floor!). All his limbs are fine and he brightened up not long after this happened and was his usual happy self. I did not take him to the ER - but of course I'm second guessing that and I'm worried sick, 'what if he's hurt something I can't see?'

I feel like a completely neglectful mother. I take him to all these tests for his hearing to make sure we are on top of it and I can't adequately supervise him and protect him from danger right under my nose?

You think you're a candidate for 'Mommy of the Year' Megan?

I think I've trumped you. If it's 'Crap Mommy of the Year' we're going for, that is.

A Princess Cake and a Reality Check!

Hmmm - so you remembered about the Cinderella carriage cake then eh?



Yeah, I kind of wimped out on that one. To list my excuses:

•A trial run on Baby J's birthday cake revealed that I had rather over estimated my cake decorating skills!

•I have two kids aged 3 and 1 that require lots of supervision to keep them out of toilets, dishwashers, pot drawers, and you-name-it-dangerous-places.

•For the month of October we've been on the medical merry-go-round with Baby J with doctors visits.

•I couldn't find a ball shaped cake tin in time (*snort* this would be because I didn't really look that hard!)

•Did I mention I have two kids - aged 3 and 1?



Who was I kidding?



I humbly recognise that Jane Asher can make beautiful cakes like that because she's well practiced in the art of cake decorating and I may have cheerfully paid her or anyone else over $800 to deliver a beautiful cake here on Sunday as I was trying to assemble the cake that Miss E ended up with.

She wanted a Princess Cake, and some pink icing and creative work with some scrapbooking stickers, a Princess Cake she got!

Happy Three, Miss E!

Today is your third birthday. My baby is becoming a little girl (although you regularly argue with me that you are a BIG girl!)

You've known your birthday was on the horizon for over two weeks as you watched all the parcels arrive for your brother's first birthday, and helped us prepare for his party. Each time you insisted that all of this was for you, we carefully explained that it would be your turn, soon.

You showed remarkable patience, accepting each day when we would tell you how many more days until your birthday. I was delighted to be able to answer your excitement this morning as you ran into my room breathlessly asking 'Is it my birthday NOW?' - Yes it IS! 'Let's get organized and get dressed before my birthday guests come' you said to me, and I'm still scratching my head, wondering did you just turn 13, and not 3?

You watched me prepare your cake yesterday evening, tempted regularly to stick your fingers in the frosting, and were placated only when I gave you the mixing beater to lick. Your Daddy wasn't impressed with me allowing you to do this on the brink of bedtime, but we can make special allowances for birthday girls.

You have been positively fizzy with excitement each time you heard the doorbell ring over the last few days, and that tell tale thud of a big box being dropped at the door by the UPS guy! My plans of surreptitiously removing these parcels and keeping them until today, thwarted by your adorable dancing around the living room chanting 'I got a parcel, I got a parcel'. I knew we'd have mass devastation on our hands if I made you wait to open the boxes, and so you were showered with wonderful early presents thanks to all your family in Ireland.

Three years ago today you made me a mother. Daddy carried you over to me all wrapped up in a blanket with your chubby little face peeking out from under a little hat. Your face wasn't the only chubby part of your 9lb 6oz self!

You have grown in leaps and bounds since then. Talking up a storm from a very early age, and now I believe are destined for a career in Law with your uncanny ability to present an argument, and redirect Mummy or Daddy's attention so as to avoid trouble for yourself!

You make me laugh every day, (and sometimes cry, too!). You are a fierce, fiesty, energetic, comical and loving little lady.

You are growing to be protective of your brother (a welcome change since you were at times the one he needed protection from!). You love him with all your heart and are so crestfallen when he has to take a nap and he isn't there to play with you.

Daddy and I were in love with you from the very first instant we saw you. You've changed our world, you rock our world and you make us very happy, and proud to be your parents.

Happy Birthday Baby Girl! I love you to the moon, and back!

Serenity and Perspective

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.


Reinhold Niebuhr

How many times have I worried until I felt physically sick about issues that are beyond my control? That they are beyond my control, a source of further anxiety.

How many times have people said to me 'Try not to worry', 'Think Positive', 'Put your trust in God'? How hard have I tried to listen to them, but still had that ball in the pit of my stomach, the tight jaw and the headaches because no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't let the stress and the worry go?

How many tears have I shed? How much anger have I felt?

Too many. Too much.

I have seen the Serenity Prayer many times. I understand its premise. I know the 'theory' of handing over the worry, but couldn't practice it. Until now.

I've written before about how it feels when doctors tell you that something is not 100% with your baby. An issue that has been present from birth and that needs careful monitoring. It hurts. As someone recently said to me 'it hurts a mother's heart', and it does.

Readers familiar with my blog will have read my stories before about our ongoing journey with Baby J and his hearing. A quick recap for those of you not familiar - a problem was detected with his hearing at birth and several hearing tests later confirmed mild hearing loss in his left ear. In August they were concerned that there was a change in his right ear. We are seeing a slew of specialists, and had a further hearing test this week to investigate the right ear further.

Since August I have been stressed out. I cried every time I told someone about what was going on. I felt frustrated that doctors were elusive, and tests weren't telling us anything. I was traipsing around to doctors appointments, my husband was taking time off work to come with me, and we had to trail Miss E with us a lot of the time (which anyone with a bored 3 year old will know, can add another stressful layer to the whole scenario). I literally was making myself physically sick.

Then, sometime before Baby J's first birthday 2 weeks ago something clicked. I essentially made a decision that I was not going to worry any more. I prayed the Serenity Prayer, but now I really meant it, and it helped. I have handed the worry over. I am powerless to influence how Baby J's hearing develops or does not develop. What I need to do is focus on the positive, and on the actions I need to do to make sure we stay on top of it and are ready to help him as soon as any 'extra' help is needed.

Going through the process of trying to first identify a suspected problem, quantify it in terms of severity and prognosis, and determine the cause is a daunting and stressful one. We deal with professionals with varying degrees of sympathy or compassion (never empathy, so far). But, while we are on this journey, I have learned, albeit the hard way, that there is nothing to be gained from worry.

Many people, the medical professionals, family and friends tried to tell me this, but I didn't listen because I was too caught up in what was basically a grief process. I look back now and I see how we (my husband and I) have gone through the denial, anger, bargaining, depression and have moved to acceptance.

We had two good appointments this week, and that sort of feels like a reward to me. The prize for finally 'letting it go'!

We saw a Genetics doctor on Monday. She was excellent and took time to answer all of our questions and concerns. She was able to rule out many genetic syndromes of which hearing loss is one element. She also pointed out that our understanding that J had inherited an autosomal recessive condition from us was inaccurate (thanks to the nurse in the ENT's office jumping to the wrong conclusion). J is a carrier of a gene that causes hearing loss, but at this point that is purely coincidental. So we still don't know the cause of the hearing loss. We may never know. For me though that is a secondary issue. My primary focus is Baby J and what his little ears are doing now and what will happen as he grows.

There are few more genetic syndromes that the doctor wants to rule out and so we will take Baby J for a renal ultrasound and an EKG on his heart. More tests! However, I am not worrying about these - I'm hanging on to that serenity!

Baby J had another sedated hearing test on Tuesday which brought the news that his left ear (the one with the originally identified problem) is still the same - so that's stable, no deterioration at all. Good news!

His right ear is showing a change, but it's a very subtle change, and not one that the audiologist is concerned about as of now. And neither am I. While it's not great that she confirmed this change in his right ear, this certainly wasn't gloomy news at all, I'll take it and will continue to pray that it stays stable and J's hearing will not get worse beyond this point.

As of now, Baby J's hearing is completely adequate for normal speech and language acquisition, which has been the primary concern regarding this hearing loss. If he does not hear all the speech sounds around him correctly, then of course he would never learn to reproduce them correctly without intervention.

No intervention is required at this point. We are happy about that, and remain cautiously optimistic for Baby J.

If he needs intervention at some point we'll get it for him. We are 100% on board with the ongoing monitoring. This is a 'happier' place to be than the denial and anger that had us questioning the diagnosis, and the need to be seen by all these specialists.

Perspective is also a wonderful thing, and something that helps me. The knowledge that what we're dealing with, while the fear of the unknown has definitely been there, it is relatively minor. We have been to a Children's Hospital a few times to see doctors, and specialty clinics with Baby J and it is an eye opener in terms of seeing the trials that other families must endure. I pray for all those families, those parents, and for all those mothers. I also pray in thanksgiving that my Baby J is so healthy and that we just have one area to which we need to pay special attention.

We now have a better understanding of why we've been putting Baby J through all these tests (reasons that were not immediately clear while we were undergoing them to be perfectly honest), and that helps give perspective to the journey we continue to move through, and the upcoming tests. While no-one has explicitly told us this, we believe that it is a by-product of the medical legal environment these days that doctors must disclose all the possibilities stemming from a hearing loss diagnosis and follow through with the appropriate tests to either confirm or rule them out. This 'disclosure' I could have done without because none of it ever came with any kind of statement on how likely or not it was that Baby J had any of the conditions to which they referred. Enter over active parental imagination and you have an explosion of panic, stress and fear.

With my new found serenity and perspective I will not give into the panic, stress or fear anymore. I will not be miserable with worry any longer, and I will continue to enjoy my child for the wonderful, happy, cheeky little guy he is!

Preschool, here we come!

I've been on the fence, a lot, about whether to send Miss E to preschool or not. If we lived in Ireland, she'd be off to nursery school at 3, and starting proper Primary School at 4, and this wouldn't cost me a second thought.

Living here however and understanding that some kids don't start formal education (Kindergarten) until they are almost 6 - I guess I bought into the idea that I shouldn't be sending her off to school too soon. She only turns 3 next week, and I do after all stay at home, why can't I just create the preschool environment for her here?

Well, let me chat about that last sentence first shall I? I can't create that environment for her because I have another child, one that lately has been dragged all around the medical place, and Miss E along with us because since we are so far from family, and most people I would trust, work, there are very few people I can leave her with. Secondly, my patience evapourates when Miss E loses interest in any particular activity (which is generally after a maximum of a minute and a half)and I give up. Add to this the fact that during the day the whining and the carrying on drives me nuts to the point that it's just a whole lot easier to let Big Bird teach her her letters!

We explored the option of preschool in the summer when all the schools were enrolling for the new school year. I limited my search to those providers within easy driving distance but was not impressed with either quality or cost. And so, I convinced myself, she didn't need it and I'd keep her home with me for another year before attempting 'school'.

Miss E is bright and she's energetic, and she's bossy. At her two year check up her doctor told me 'she's a smart kid, don't let her get bored or she will drive you crazy'. This is the point we are at right now. This combined with a not so great stay at my friends house the other day where she basically bullied my friend's twins, has left us confounded as to what to do and how best to help her mix and behave with other kids, her peers. Wise suggestions from my mother, a preschool educator in the past, and friends who've had their kids in preschool started to filter in and have us revisit the idea.

Miss E is a delight. She makes me laugh every single day. She amazes me with her speech and her topics of conversation. She is moving into a phase now where it is so much fun to see her and her brother interact and have fun, together. However, she can be challenging in other ways. She has a temper, and she has a hard time with the concept of 'no' regardless of whether she hears it from a peer or an adult. Disciplining her is hard, but we try to remain consistent and have constantly told her that hands are not for hitting, and that if she's frustrated she must use her words to explain how she feels, and not lash out. This has been frustrating for us because it seems like she takes none of it in. This leads to embarrassment on my part when she acts out in front of friends and their kids, or as happened at J's birthday weekend where she took it out on my cousin's kids.

I had an appointment with the director of a fantastic preschool this morning. It is a bit of a drive for us but we went to check it out. I told Miss E we were just going to have a look today and she stormily responded 'I don't want to just look! I want to stay and listen to the teacher!'. A promising sentiment of course, but the manner in which it was delivered had me worried about how this meeting would go.

I need not have worried.

From the instant we arrived at this school Miss E was beyond excited, and chomping at the bit to get inside and look around. We met with the director who showed us their VPK classrooms, and the other classrooms for the younger kids. The only spot that is available is in the 3.5 to 4 year old class. We were invited to check the place out today with the guarded condition that we see how Miss E reacted to this environment, and for the director to gauge if she would be ready for a class with slightly older kids.

As soon as Miss E saw the open door of the VPK classroom she waltzed right in like she was born to it. Her confident, enthusiastic attitude literally gave me goose pimples, not least because she is the polar opposite of the shy child I remember myself being. It was as if she was saying to the world 'Hey, it's school, here I am - I'm READY!' On seeing this, the director immediately said 'I think someone is ready for school' I could have hugged her. The director has no reservations whatsoever about Miss E slotting into the group with the slightly older kids.

All the kids from the various classrooms were moving outside for some playground time so Miss E happily went along with them so I could fill in the paperwork inside. The director was careful to explain to Miss E where the teachers were, and showed her the window through which she could see Mommy - Miss E could have cared less where I was, and while I can pretend that this hurt me, it didn't because I am genuinely thrilled that she is excited about this place, and that the director and the teachers were so welcoming. I chatted some more with the director and the teachers about how things go and I am more than delighted that we've got Miss E in here. This preschool is annexed to a Church, and they have such a loving, safe and caring environment and they strive above all to make learning fun, and make it a place where the kids want to be. Who could ask for more?

Starting the first week in November, my big girl is headed to preschool. Three days a week, three hours each day. One day a month I will volunteer and help out in her class so I'll get to see what their routine is and the kinds of activities she's doing.

Can you tell I'm excited about this? I'm excited for Miss E first and foremost I have a gut feeling that this will be very, very good for her. I'm excited for Baby J because he'll get to have me to himself for a while, something that at 12 months he has yet to experience. And, I am excited for me, too and I don't feel guilty anymore for saying that.

Preschool! Here. We. Come!