Love this song

I heard this song for the first time in March 2006. Somehow the radio in the truck got turned to a Christian station and this song was what we heard as Craig and the kids dropped me off at the hospital one friday morning. They were going home for the weekend and I was to spend the weekend with Alex. This was the day Alex had his heparin overdose and nearly died.... We drove to the hospital in silence that day. I had nothing to say..... and had no way of knowing the turn our lives were about to take....

The most wonderful time of the year

What is better than the time of year you can stuff your face with tons of calorie laden food and no one at the table bats an eye? Seriousely, I love food. I mean L-O-V-E food. It's really quite amazing I'm of "average" weight for height because my love for food borders on addiction at times. I don't just love food, I love anything dripping with gravy or with 4 lbs of butter in it. Which is pretty much Thanksgiving by definition.

lv <--- see that? that's Nate typing. He loves food too.

Anyway. So Thanksgiving is over and today I work on Christmas cards, otherwise known- in the politically correct world- as HOLIDAY cards. Whatever, they are cards, I bought mine on a black friday sale at Menards for 99 cents a box. Sorry folks, stamps are too expensive for Hallmark. So now I write the obligatory (and downright slightly tacky, even I admit it) yearly letter to put in my cards, updating folks on the goings on around here and linking them to my blog because frankly, 2 sheets of paper for a letter is plenty and it would take me about 300 more than that to tell everyone about a year in the life of 8 crazy northerners.

Wouldn't ya know it. No color ink. So before the cards go out a trip to Hatemart is in order. Always something.

On the school front. Homeschooling is wonderful. Dare I say it, a week into our venture? WONDERFUL. Allowing my kids to tell ME what they are interested in and then tailoring activities so they learn as much as they can from one subject seems to be what is going to work for us, at least as of now. They LOVE IT.

Speaking of. It went better than I expected taking them out of school. Hailey's principal looked surprisingly er surprised. Huh? You just thought we were going to bring her back and let her get beat up on again didja? apparently.

We didn't even talk to Austin's principal because he wasn't there. Oh well, like it matters.

The police refuse to charge the blond headed deviant with ANYTHING. Go figure. Can't think of a more clear message that violence will be tolerated and condoned in school. What a joke. Just another case of "if nothing happens about it, then it didn't happen" in this town. And you people wonder why nearly 100 children have been moved from this small district in recent years. Here's a hint, it's not because you are doing things right!

Anyway, off to make food. Did I mention I love food?

sickies sickies everywhere!

So I've now been battling this cold since Wed night. Yesterday my coworker "strongly encouraged" me to just go home and sleep it off, which after trying to argue with her that I was perfectly fine I decided to just do because my poor patients were probably freaking out that I was going to share it with them with all my coughing. Hand sanitizer can only do so much. Plus the night before my sleep was pretty broken worrying about Jack who was spiking 103+ fevers, everytime I'd get it to come down he'd start shivering and it would race back up.

So I went home and got a little nap in and about 1:30 Jack started saying his neck hurt. Gave him some motrin at 2 and by 2:30 his temp was still over 102 and he was crying and asking to go to the DR (he HATES doctors remember) so I figured he must be feeling really awful.

Get him to the ER and we go through all the zillion questions. Jack is a really tough nut to crack sometimes because of his SID. He just doesn't feel things like we do. Turns out it's strep throat again! Joy.

Get his meds and the damn lady on the other end of the instymed machine phone can't speak or understand english. No ma'am, our insurance card doesn't HAVE an RX number. Yes, ma'am I know what an RX number is. No ma'am, there is no RX number. Ma'am, do you realize I look at insurance cards ALL DAY LONG?! I know where to look. Fine I'll pay for the damn medicine in cash.... yeah, have a nice goddamn day too.

So I get his meds and get home and Hailey says "hey mom, my throat really hurts" Greee-at. Guess the doc will be calling in a few more scripts before the week is out. Thankfully I don't have to bring them all in for cultures or I might kill myself.

So I'm home about 45 minutes and all of a sudden I feel as though I've been stabbed in the back ... in the kidney to be precise. A-HA! Kidney stone time. Great. So I call Craig and almost breathe out enough of a "ki.......dney........st" for him to get what I was saying and he says he'll be home asap. Took a crapload of Motrin and curled up in the fetal position on the recliner. It had eased a little by the time Craig got home so I popped an oxycodone and went to bed. Pain was gone by this morning YAY! So either it passed and is sitting in my bladder or it dropped back into the kidney to torture me another day, who knows. Either way, there's many more where that one came from to look forward to, joy. I'm thinking about finally caving in and agreeing to let my urologist hack my kidneys open and do away with em. Shudder.

In better news, our PS-1206 form was received by the State of Wisconsin dept of public instruction today! Which means tomorrow we clean out Austin and Hailey's lockers and begin homeschooling! Well, we've been teaching Hailey at home for nearly a week now, but now we're official! Woohoo. I don't think it will go well tomorrow. I'm not even holding out hope. Too bad I know what the law says about homeschooling and what my rights are. I'm actually figuring he'll make something up and call CPS and they'll be at my door before the holiday. Anything to stir up trouble.

Craig got ahold of the superintendant today about his talk with the principal on Thursday about the situation and I'm not sure what all was said but he sent me a text message that just as we suspected, the superintendant wasn't willing to do anything to keep her safe either. We tried every option we could think of anyway, no one can say we didn't do our best. And for the record, we STILL haven't heard anything about the charges.

However if they think it ends this simply they are horribly mistaken. I am writing a letters to the DPI, to Mrs. Mary Hubler (our state representative) and anyone else I can think of who won't tolerate violence being allowed in a public school. This time it's Hailey, and thank God we are able, due to commitment and work schedules, to remove her from that environment and spend our days teaching her at home where she feels safe. But what about the next kid? What if his or her parents can't, or won't? This cannot continue to be acceptable. It just can't.

Period.

deep breath

So I was told I needed to take a deep breath after last night. So I did. And I realized. I just can't go down the "why" road. The "why" road is an angry road that doesn't get me anywhere. God is not going to answer my questions and I have to accept that.

Deep breathe. Relax.

And life goes on.

And an update on the school situation

This morning I called and left a voicemail for the principal asking him if anything had been done to ensure Hailey's safety at school and reprimand S. I never got a phone call back. So today we sent the PS-1206 form to the state of Wisconsin department of education informing them that we will be homeschooling. We will have delivery confirmation by noon on Monday (per the post office) and Tuesday morning will be cleaning out Austin and Hailey's lockers. (Austin has been struggling in school and we had hoped high school would be different, it hasn't been and he is currently carrying straight F's and becoming increasingly frustrated by the lack of help from his teachers so the decision was made that as long as we were pulling Hailey, he could benefit as well).

Hailey has been doing great at home and today had a breakthrough in math that was a long time coming. She is also working on a project about dogs and about President Jefferson

Sigh

You know, there's this strange thing that happens sometimes. Sometimes I realize Alex is dead. I know, you are wondering where the hell I've been, he's been dead for 2 1/2 years. Tonight I read what I have of his medical record which is surgical notes and lab and radiology reports. I don't understand. I don't understand how things went the way they did.

I don't understand how he did so well after surgery the first time, coming off bypass and satting at 94%, to ripping all the sutures out and nearly bleeding to death and ending up on ECMO. I don't understand how the x-ray the morning he died showed "significant improvement" in the appearance of his lungs from the night before and 5 hours later x-ray showed his lungs still looked great, what they could see around the defibrillator paddle at least. I don't understand any of it.

I understand the words (well, enough anyway) but it doesn't make sense. My heart just can't even fathom what went on in those 6 weeks and 5 days.

Reading the ultrasound report from his head ultrasound. Reading the the Radiologists words that it was unknown what the bleeding in his brain would mean longterm. Reading the report from the neurologist that said "he turns his eyes left to look at his father". OMG that killed me.

I remember when he would lay there, eyes wide open even as doped up on meds as he was and his little body wouldn't move except his eyes, looking in response to our voices. I remember looking into those eyes that didn't show fear or pain, but a sense of calmness that gave me so much hope. A machine working for hisheart and lungs and still he was there, he was there.

And then I remember those eyes filled with pain. Those silent wails. And I would stroke his tiny cheek and he would stop, open his eyes and look straight into mine and cry again his silent cry.

Oh how I wanted to scoop him up and tell him everything was going to be ok. But I couldn't. I couldn't do anything.

The day he died I remember feeling the need to protect him. I hadn't been able to protect him for so long. Even though he was gone it felt so wonderful to finally have him in my arms where no-one could hurt him anymore. To shield him from the pain he could no longer feel. Or may I was using his tiny lifeless body as a shield for my own pain. I don't know.

Today I'm not ok. I wonder when I ever will be. Never? I feel so ripped off. Everything he went through was for nothing and today I hate God for that. I don't feel inclined to feel the "God's will" or " for a reason" bullshit today. I can think of a million reasons why children shouldn't die and not one reason they should. I feel today that God is a hypocrit quite frankly.

The only peace I have is knowing that this moment will pass and the thin film that covers my heart and protects it from this raw emotion will repair itself once again and tomorrow will be a new day. A new day where the sun comes up and life goes on. Even when it doesn't.

Sick sick sick

I caught the sickies, blah. No wonder really with the amount of stress around here at the moment. Tried my damnest to not sneeze all over people at work and used about a half bottle of sanitizer before caving in and taking my sniffling self downstairs to the pharmacy for some dayquil which did clear my head a bit but didn't releive my symptoms nearly as much as I'd hoped. Blah.

Not a whole lot to report on the school situation since I spent all day at work but Craig did call the superintendant today to ask for his help in dealing with the principal. He called back as I was on my way home so unfortunately we will have to wait until Monday to hear what he came up with, apparently he's out of the office tomorrow. Here's hoping we make some progress and things can improve very soon. I did get some more information from another student tonight that will hopefully prove helpful.

Craig also had a guy come in and look at our floor today. Wait, I haven't talked about my floor yet in here have I?! Well, we got a wild hair last Friday and decided on a whim to pull up the carpet in the living room that has been there since we bought the house. Much to our surprise we found hardwood floors in excellent shape! Definitely have some cosmetic issues as far as the stain and some scratches but all in all in extremely good condition. So we had someone come look at them to give us an estimate on refinishing them and he said they are maple and very likely ORIGINAL to the house! This house was built in 1884!

He said he'd get back to us on the final estimate. Fingers crossed it fits within our budget.

Anyway, I'm going to down my germs in some french vanilla coffee and junk food and then hopefully get some sleep.

A news story from our local paper

Another example of what's going on with Hailey in this same community in 2005, has anything changed?


Imagine, if you will, that you are having a dream.
In that dream, you are a young child again - a kindergartner perhaps - standing and waiting for the school bus to stop at your house and pick you up to take you to school. For some reason you can't identify you are nervous - maybe even frightened. What's there to be frightened of, right? The school bus is a safe enough place.

But as the bus pulls up your heart begins to race. "I don't want to get on the bus," you say to yourself. Despite your mental protestings, you know you must. Sheepishly, you climb the steps into the belly of that yellow behemoth. As you pass between the row of seats, you remember why you are terrified - the bully. The bully that lurks just waiting for the right victim to catch their eye. You slink to your seat - head down, eyes focused on your shoes - hoping not to be noticed. Then you hear the voice that sets your hair on end and your heart into a full-on sprint. "Hey, did your momma dress you in that?" You freeze, hoping that by ignoring the culprit your fragile little body will be spared. No luck. Strong hands - teenage hands - grab onto your head and lift you up to the top of the bus, slamming your head into the metal ceiling, leaving you with a searing pain that is both physical and mental.You wake up and realize it's just a dream.


Unfortunately, for some children, that dream is a nightmare they live every single day. It comes in many forms, profiles and has many different results. One thing always remains the same though - until someone stands up to them the bullies will continue to bully.The Kolanczyk's storyFor Chuck Kolanczyk, the above nightmare is very similar to the one he endured Tuesday, Sept. 21, 2004.The day was just like any other for Chuck, 6, having had a delightful time at his Roselawn Elementary kindergarten class. Chuck is part of Tracey Meskers' and Holly Pember's kindergarten-first grade "loop" class, and he enjoys school very much.Every day, the bus picks up the elementary students at Roselawn and then drives over to the high school to pick up high school and middle school students. Upon arrival at the high school, the bus driver had to escort a student off the bus into the parking lot, temporarily leaving the bus unsupervised.It was at this point, allege Gerald and Corina Kolanczyk, that a high school student entered the bus, picked Chuck up by his head, and slammed him against the roof of the bus."Can you imagine these huge hands basically grabbing you by the ears, lifting you up and slamming your head into the bus?" asked Corina. "Can you imagine what effect that type of physical and mental trauma has on a child?""No child should have to deal with that," adds Gerald. "Ever."

Holding Jerry's hand, Corina describes Chuck's condition when he arrived at home as being "strange" and "so unlike Chuck.""When he got home he started vomiting," Corina describes with tears in her eyes. "He told me he was having head pains and chest pains. He was having a hard time breathing as well. At a point he just became inconsolable."With Corina gripped in the throes of panic, wondering what was going on with her son, she finally learned what happened."I finally got Chuck calmed down enough to find out what happened and then we went to the emergency room."Chuck was first diagnosed with a concussion and a neck sprain.

However, after Chuck kept experiencing shortness of breath and chest pain, the Kolanczyks decided to bring Chuck back in to be checked out again."We told them about the shortness of breath and the chest pain Chuck was experiencing, and they told us that what he was experiencing was trauma and shock from the attack," explains Corina."You'd be in shock, too, if something like that happened to you," adds Gerald. "He won't ride the bus anymore," Corina chimes in, "and at this point we don't want him to."Corina says she has nothing against the driver of the bus on which the assault occurred, she and Gerald are just worried about the physical and mental well-being of their son.

"We don't want Chuckster to be scarred for life by this, or to continue to be targeted because he told us what happened," says Gerald. "I think he has suffered enough."In light of what transpired on the bus that day, along with some other allegations the Kolanczyks have brought forth against the School District of Chetek, Gerald and Corina made the difficult decision to pull two of their three children out of the district - effective Wednesday, Feb. 16."As of Wednesday, Feb. 16, my 6-year-old son and 8-year-old daughter are no longer part of the Chetek School District," writes Gerald in a letter to School District of Chetek Superintendent Al Brown. "We will be home schooling them this year and they will be transferring to Cameron via open enrollment next year."

The decision to pull their children out of school in the middle of the school year was not an easy one for the Kolanczyks, but one they felt was necessary as a response to what they called "being pushed aside.""We were hoping to let Chuck and his sister finish out the school year in Chetek and then enroll at Cameron next year," explains Gerald. "But we have just had enough with them [representatives of the School District] and the way they have treated us."Gerald adds that the sad part of the whole thing is that no matter what happens with his kids the rest of this year, and next at Cameron, the fact remains that there is still a bully out there, ready to traumatize another child."

They haven't punished the kid responsible for this yet," states Gerald, with sadness in his eyes. "We've told them who did it. Chuck has even identified the boy, and there has still not been anything done about it."

Read the rest of the story at the Chetek Alert's website HERE

Another update

This morning Craig and I took the discharge summary, clearly stating the injuries the doctor observed last night to the principal and notified him that Hailey wouldn't be at school. I told him that she was really afraid of coming back and being forced to spend her recess in the library with S and he told me he never said that..... He also told me that one of the witnesses we mentioned told him she wasn't even out there when it happened. Funny since SHE was one of the two who ran in to tell him. DUH! We also informed him that the attorney we made contact with this morning clearly stated that choking and punching someone would most certainly NOT be disorderly conduct but rather assault and battery in that it has the potential to cause great bodily harm. Hell in my opinion choking someone would fit the bill of attempted murder actually....... but I'm no judge.


I'm impressed (and saddened) by the number of parents in this community who emailed me after my blog post last night. I had no idea that many people here read my blog! That and to read some of the stories is heartbreaking. Many of these parents no longer have their children in this district and some moved altogether. Some still have their kids in the school either for lack of options or because they don't know who to turn to. Most it seems have climbed the ladder. The principal, the administrator, the school board, even law enforcement and have gotten nowhere. How very sad that politics in this town has taken over what is truly best for our children. Sad indeed.

Anyway. So I got some of Hailey's belongings out of her locker and we left and went to the police station, hoping to make contact with the officer from yesterday and make sure that charges were filed and collect Hailey's disorderly conduct citation. The officer we needed to talk to wasn't working today so that was a bust. Not that we want Hailey ticketed, but if in fact her saying "you can't catch me" WAS enticement then we will take the charge presented, fair is fair. Mostly we want a court date to let the judge decide.

After that we headed over to the county courthouse to file a restraining order preventing S from harassing Hailey further. Rumor has it she was served at school. I am hoping she learns from all of this and doesn't create anymore trouble.

I was warned in a comment from a friend overseas that my blogging the events of all of this may be detrimental to any proceedings that need to come from it. Blogging this is serving a few purposes. It's helping me keep a timeline of events, allowing me to document the goings on so if the time comes to remember them I remember clearly, and to send a message to anyone who thinks it's ok to bully a child or families in the communities you serve. It's NOT ok for that girl to physically hurt another child, it's NOT ok for school and city staff to "dumb down" events in order to keep violent acts within the district "under the rug" (my opinion on what's going on of course, however one of the members of the school board did say, in a newspaper story referencing the drug problem in our schools:

"As a school board member, and I see other school board members present, we work very hard in a very competitive school situation to do positive things," stated Jost. "If we have negative concerns we try and deal with them-privately."

Privately? Tell me, why would we deal with illegal behaviors such as drugs in school privately, rather than refer them to law enforcement, Mr Jost? Does that even make any sense?

You can read this article, which I mentioned references drugs and not violence HERE

Back to violence....

It is NOT ok to make the victim of the assault spend her lunch in a room with her attacker ( a statement that "didn't" take place of course). It's not ok to try to back a parent into a corner and tell them that if the attacker is charged the victim will be too, in an apparent effort to put the kibosh on anything leaving the school (again, MY opinion. and not just stemming from my case, but from talking to other people this happens a LOT in this community. One parent in fact claims she felt she was being talked out of taking her child with a broken nose from a school assault to the hospital! Sadly she didn't end up taking him so there was no proof of his injury therefore no charges could be filed. ).

None of this is ok. Of course some of these things are simply my take on what is going on and may or may not be the intent of the people involved (there's my attempt at a disclaimer lmao) But I'd rather speak up and take that risk then have this little town be the next Columbine or Jonesboro because bullies were allowed to bully and victims were allowed to be victimized. When the victim of a crime at school walks away feeling scared to return to school because nothing was done to their attacker, that is NOT OK! What happens when one day the bully brings a weapon to school and something horrible happens. I'm scared to send my daughter to school for God's sake! This is NOT OK!

Whew, ok calming down slightly. It makes me so scared and sad and angry that his has happened to my daughter and to the other families I've been in contact with. Children should not be treated this way. Children should be protected and when we hand our most precious things over to the people at school we should be assured that every step will be taken to keep our child safe from violence. When we send our children out that door in the morning we put our faith in the adults that we have little choice in entrusting with their care...... what happens when they fail to do that? What happens when nobody holds them accountable for failing to do that? Eventually tragedy happens.

I don't honestly know what it will take to get the answers and accountability we (and others) feel comfortable with but I have some places to start. There are many state representatives and othe resources we can turn to if we look. I'm sure I will again look like the bad guy and have my house egged or something (hehe) but there are a few things I tell my kids on a regular basis. That I will do whatever it takes to keep them safe and that sometimes it's worth the risk to stand up for what you beleive in.


***Again, I don't know if these things are the intent of the people involved. I have no way of knowing exactly what each party thinks or feels in this or any other incidence. I do know that my child was physically inujured at school and that her attacker was not, in my opinion, properly disciplined or held accountable nor were steps taken to assure my daughters comfort in her future safety from this child in the school setting. It is not my intent whatsoever to place blame where it is undue or to make accusations that are blatently false. It is simply my intent to tell our story, as we saw it and to make sure my child and others in this school district are protected to the fullest extent possible to the end I am capable.***

Good to know!

Did you know it's ok to physically assault someone? I just learned that today. At least in our town it is.

So at around 12:30 today I'm downstairs and Craig comes down in a hurry and says "lets go". Huh? Where are we going? "To the school he tells me. S just beat Hailey up".

WHAT? I tell him to call the police (knowing the school wouldn't have done it, oh no) and get my shoes and coat on and get Nate ready.

Now S. This girl really does have some serious issues. I feel for her, I really do. Sad story of a child in the foster care system who is now living with, in my opinion, less than ideal foster parents. This child has often been seen on the corner near her home just taking her clothing off, for no apparent reason. Hailey and her hung around briefly at the end of last year until the foster mom lost her mind one day and began screaming at S while Hailey was there, so loudly in fact that people blocks away heard her, and I put the kibosh on Hailey going over there in that environment.

For the most part we had little issue with this girl or her foster family until recently. A few weeks ago she had written a note to Hailey saying some really cruel things about her foster mother and my friend and I took the note over there, in hopes that maybe if the foster mother knew some of these things, she could help this child.

Apparently the foster mother did talk to her, and that's when she began saying horrible things about all of us around town. Then a couple weeks ago Hailey had stopped home before a game she was cheering at with her team/squad/what do you call it? mates and told them to stay outside while she ran in and got something. My friend and I were talking in the kitchen and when we saw S in the living room my friend simply asked her why she had been saying those things to people. This turned into this child swearing and me telling her to leave my home where she proceeded to call me names all the way down the street.

Childish, silly things. No biggie right?

Well then my friends house got egged. She couldn't see who it was but the person looked like a teenage girl and ran in the direction of S's house, which is only about a block away from my friends. This was reported to the police but little could be done without being able to identify her. A couple days ago I told Hailey that if she happened to hear S talking about egging anyone's house to let me know.

Fast forward to today at lunch. Hailey and her group of friends were sitting in the cafeteria and Hailey asked S if she egged my friend's house. S said no, but the cops were at her house a few days ago because she had flipped out on foster mom. Oh, ok. She then proceeded to swear at Hailey and soon they went their separate ways, and headed outside.

Once outside (according to Hailey and the other girls that were out there) S came over by Hailey and swore at her and walked away. Moments later another girl, B, came over and relayed a message to the girls that Shelby was going to kill Hailey. Hailey asked another girl, J, to go over there and tell S to leave her alone and stop coming over there and J does.

A couple minutes later S comes BACK over and tells Hailey she's going to beat her up. Hailey said "you can't even catch me" and S darts at her and Hailey does in fact run faster and gets away and stands in front of a classroom window hoping if anything further happened the teacher inside would see. S was near the door preventing Hailey or her friends from getting inside and the aide was noticing nothing, as per usual. I've heard from many people that things can happen right in front of his particular aide and he has no idea. Sounds like a great use of our tax dollars!

Then S came at Hailey again and punches her in the jaw before Hailey took off running again. Hailey trips and S grabs the back of her jacket and puts her to the ground where she smacks her head on the concrete and scrapes her finger. S gets on top of her and proceeds to begin choking her. Hailey pushes S off her and Hailey's friend M tries to get S to get away from her. H gets up and is punched in the eye before she and all her friends run into the building, Hailey into the office to call us and her friends to find the principal and tell him what happened.


So, we arrive at school and Hailey is in the office, cheeks red from a mixture of tears, pain, and anger. We are told that the principal is in another room with the police officer and S and sit and wait. We see S's foster mother come in and she angrily points a finger at me while saying something I couldn't hear as the secretary leads her to where they are at.

After a while the principal comes and leads us to a conference room. We see S and her foster mom sitting outside the room and take a seat inside with the police officer and principal. They ask Hailey what happened and take their notes. I got the sense right away that they weren't entirely interested. Stupid me, I still had hope. After everything we've dealt with with this guy, I still had hope.

He asks Hailey to tell her side of the story and he and the officer write asking her to clarify things here and there as she goes and then informs her that her story differs from S's (duh!). We ask him if they have spoken to any of the witnesses and he says no. He tells us that when Hailey's friends M and H came in and found him, they mentioned nothing of her getting punched only that she was bleeding and that he felt if she had gotten punched they would have mentioned that. I disagreed thinking that they would probably blurt out the bleeding.... but what do I know. We asked them to please talk with the witnesses and maybe some of the loose ends would be tied.

We were taken back down to the office and by then Nathan was getting restless so I left Hailey in the office and drove them home, thinking I could deal with this on my own since it was obvious Hailey had been the victim in the situation. My second mistake.

So after a bit we are asked back down to the conference room and the principal informs us that he has a good idea what happened and what they intend to do and asks Hailey a few more questions. He then informs us that Hailey is the only one who said anything about any punching. We found out they had only talked to one witness and not all of them. The officer informs us that since Hailey had said that S couldn't catch her, that was taunting and if he charged S with disorderly conduct, he would charge H as well. What?!? the same charge?

Knowing that it had happened again, that the victim had once again become the accused I bit my lip and listened in disbelief as the principal told me that Hailey and S, for the next few days would be spending recess together in the library to "work this out" and in a few days would meet with the guidance counselor I informed them that Hailey would be coming home with me for the rest of the day.

When I got home and told Craig what had happened he got his shoes and coat and left. Uh oh. Daddies pissed. He went to the school and told the principal and the officer that it was a bunch of bull and it wasn't over.

I decided at that time the best thing I could do was have Hailey's injuries looked at by a doctor and further document them in that way. We went to the hospital and they sent us to the emergency room rather than urgent care and the doctor looked her over, noting the zipper mark across her neck and the bruising and swelling under her right eye. (where she "didn't" get punched) he was concerned enough to order an x-ray to make sure the bone in her cheek wasn't broken, thankfully it wasn't. She had a horrid headache and he told her that she'd have some spasming in her neck from being choked but she should be ok, just really sore for a few days. When we returned home we found that all of her friends had either stopped by or called to make sure she was ok and upon calling them back 2 of them confirmed that they HAD in fact told the principal that Hailey was punched. Once again, the principal lied and only listened to the statements he wanted to.

We contacted the police officer and told him that we would like to have charges pressed and that if that meant Hailey got a ticket as well, he could bring it on over and we would just find out what the judge had to say in court. Tomorrow we will be going to the county courthouse to file restraining orders against S and her foster mother. As far as Hailey and school Ithink she's going to be pretty sore and will have to stay home for a few days and hopefully in that time the principal thinks a little more clearly and takes action to make sure students who commit violence are disciplined and victims are protected. I can't give a whole lot of info as to our plans as far as school but to say that unless we feel like enough has been done for our daughter to be safe at school we will have to pursue other options for her education.

Off to bed, it's been a long day!

Sad update

A sad update to the missing mom I told you about. Her body has been found and her ex husband has been arrested and charged with her murder. Her 2 year old twin boys are now in state custody. How awful.

Prayer warriors! 2 requests!

I have 2 prayer requests for our ever diligent prayer warriors today.

First is little Will. Will's mom Heather and I have been friends via the internet for something like 8 years. Her little boy is in need of our prayers as he is facing a health crisis that gets scarier by the minute. They are on the verge of making some decisions for him that could alter his life immensly. I apologize for not giving a whole lot of info but I haven't obtained permission from Heather to do so. Just please pray for Will and his family as they face this test. I will keep you updated as much as I can.

Secondly is Alisha Sidie. Alisha is a 27 year old mom of twins from right here in Wisconsin. She is missing and her babies need mommy back! Please look at the link, memorize her face and contact the Jackson County Sherrif's dept at (715) 284-5357 with any information if you have seen her or have any info!

ugh

Seriousely I'm so cranky even *I* don't want to be around me. I'm just crabby tonight and my legs are restless and I feel like I could crawl out of my skin and everything is making me angry. Gosh I hope i'm not getting sick or something. Blah.

I don't understand

A friend asked me to go to youtube and watch this video and I felt compelled to share it with you. I warn you, if you are anything like me you won't be able to stop sobbing.




Please, if you suspect a child is being abused DO SOMETHING. I don't care what you have to do, but do it. Children like little Kelsey deserve a voice, be their voice before it is too late. It may be too late for this child and for so many others but right now in your community a child is being abused, we can't let these horrible monsters continue to hurt babies and turn a blind eye.

But what if our suspicions are wrong? We ask ourselves. I'd rather be wrong than be right. Being wrong means little compared to being right and doing nothing.

Winter is upon us!

It snowed today! Ok so not the 30something inches they got in the Dakota's this week, not even anything that stuck to the ground, but white flakes falling from the sky no less. Joy, I hate winter.

I'm crabby today. Poor Craig, I was crabbing at him half the day. He always gets the brunt of it.

I know I've been quiet lately, there is just really nothing exciting going on! We are so busy it seems with Craig and I working goofy hours, the kids in school, Hailey and her babysitting and Poms practices. How I love living the American dream!

I can't wait to start Christmas shopping. The kids of course already have lists a mile long so that helps. I think I'll hold off until black friday to start my shopping and take advantage of any deals that might be going on that day, I hear they are going to be good since the economy is so rotten the stores will be having lots of deals to make some sales. hehe, bad economy is good for something....

Anyway, hope you all are well!

History

Last night I let the kids stay up late watching CNN with me to witness history. Although I had and continue to have my doubts as to Obama's ability to make the change he promises to this country, I am excited to see the change just his presence in the White house means for our children and future generations.

Starting today this country affords all children of color to dream and to fulfill their dreams. That is amazing. It wasn't long ago we were enslaving people, it wasn't long ago that even a white woman was not allowed a voice in what happens in this country, this election has changed all of that.

Unfortunately now we have a president that cares not about the life of a human child in his support of abortion, that worries me to no end. We also have a president that "sometimes" puts his hand over his heart and recites the pledge of allegience. That scares me too.

I cast my vote and I did my duty. Now let's hope he can do his.

Palin for 2012!!!