The Silver Lining

You know the saying, "Every cloud has a silver lining"? Well I think I found a brief silver lining in my mess of a life. I was in the hospital one morning a few weeks ago, I know, I know, you're all probably saying, "I think I've heard this one." But seriously, this is a new hospital visit. I was throwing up blood in the middle of the night one night and by the time I went to the hospital around six in the morning, I was totally dehydrated. The nurses couldn't even get a vein for the IV. After jabbing me several times, they gave up and have me drink lots of water and ginger ale and eat saltines until they were sure I could keep it all down. As soon as I got home, I laid on the couch planning to zone out while my mother was over helping with Dare Devil. Then the phone rang.

At first I wasn't going to answer it because I didn't recognize the number but something told me to pick up the phone. I was really glad that I did. I had entered an online contest with a local radio station the week before to attend a private performance from the band Flyleaf. If you don't know who they are, look them up. The lead singer, Lacey Mosley has such an incredible voice. They're sort of a heavy alternative band. They are by far my favorite band and I had been a bit bummed that I wasn't going to be able to get tickets to their concert. So when I had heard about this contest, I decided it was worth a shot to enter. Low and behold, I won! I jumped off the couch asking the girl on the other end if she was serious. She was. I was told that Saturday of the upcoming weekend, I was to come to the studio with a guest and my camera to hear Flyleaf perform and I'd get to meet them afterwards. I was so ecstatic, I couldn't help but jump around the room like an idiot singing, "I'm going to see Flyleaf, I'm going to see Flyleaf."
Next, I called my big brother, Nick to see if he wanted to be my one guest and go with me. Of course he was down for it. Who wouldn't be? Finally, something good. Maybe things were beginning to look up.

That Saturday I was a nervous wreck. Had it been any other band, I wouldn't have been as excited but this was really exciting for me. I was mad that my digital camera is broken so I made my brother swear he'd bring a working one plus some batteries in case. The drive there was close to an hour and I was really nervous we'd be late but we made it in time. After laughing about the fact that we were obviously the oldest ones there and I was, of course, the only pregnant one there we went inside and signed in. All in all, there were only about twenty people there, including us. We waited inside the studio's kitchen until the room was ready. Nick and I were the first ones in and we grabbed the closest most comfortable seats available. We could hear the interview going on next door with Lacey and Pat from Flyleaf. It was just going to be an acoustic performance with just the two of them. I actually started having a panic attack while waiting for them to come out, how cheesy is that?

Finally Lacey and Pat came out and got onto the small stage. They hopped right into their performance and I was totally blown away. I took as many pictures as the camera would allow, because I am that crazy fan. And afterwards, Nick and I were the first to meet them and have them sign pictures for us. I asked them to make mine out to my son, Big Brother, since I hadn't brought him with me. Lacey told me she really liked my shirt, which I have repeated to everyone I've come in contact with since, and we had our picture taken with them. The experience was over in a flash but it was still awesome. I was really glad to have that afternoon of something amazing to break up the every day non-stop craziness.

Creepy Words From the ER

So in typical fashion for my family, we had to go to the emergency room yesterday. Only this time it wasn't for me or Dare Devil, it was for my husband Bill. Lately he's had this immense pressure around his temple area and seeing as how he never had it before, he was getting nervous. It wasn't going away or getting better. If anything, it was becoming more severe. After seeing his family doctor yesterday morning, he received a nasal steroid (which still has not done a bit of good by the way). Around one o'clock yesterday afternoon I got the call from him to pick him up from work and drive him to the hospital.

I packed the diaper bag as quick as possible, arranged for a friend to pick Big Brother up from school, woke Dare Devil up from his nap and rushed out the door. Of course I still wound up sitting outside Bill's work for fifteen minutes while he wrapped everything up for the day. (My husband would still be working from his death bed.) Once he hopped in the car we headed to the nearest yet most ridiculous hospital around. This hospital is one of those that new people to the area are warned about. I personally would rather drive an hour to a better one than fifteen minutes to this one. But it was the closest and was the place he chose to go.

Just to give you a little back round though, Bill has been admitted to this hospital before with blood clots. He had his first at twenty-years old and his second at twenty-six. When he was in for the second one, the doctor told him that it was simply the same blood clot and that it just had never gone away. Of course we found out after calling his doctor's office that the old blood clot was in the opposite leg and had absolutely nothing to do with the new one. The staff there trained me to give Bill shots which he would need every day for the rest of his life. I watched a video about it and everything. Then, an hour later they changed their minds and told us the shots were not necessary. They placed Bill on heparin and twenty-minutes later ran in, took him off of it and said he shouldn't have been on it at all. They also realized three days after he was admitted that he should have been given a warm compress for his leg from the very first day. He wound up going home a week later with pneumonia. So this would be a big reason I personally would not entrust my life to this hospital.


Anyway, Bill gave me some brief information on the way there. The pressure in his head had gotten worse and suddenly he had felt a pop and then his body went numb. Once he came out of triage in the ER though and was rushed back for tests, I found out there was more to it than that. He didn't want to scare me on the way there but after the pop and numbness, he couldn't talk and it took him a good twenty minutes to be able to form speech. He had also smelled a burning smell. So they were treating him for signs of a stroke. Wow, that's scary.

Once in a bed, they ran an EKG right away, took blood (to check for any signs of clotting) a few hours later, and sent him for a CAT scan about two hours after that. While waiting all that time, I went into supermom mode. I had books, snacks, juice and toys for DD to keep him happy and contained (so as not to wreak havoc upon other patients). When all of that failed, I sang a medley of songs including songs from TV shows, which I'm sure the old man yelling in pain next to us loved. I finally got a hold of my mom to pick him up and take him back to my house. Once she arrived I hopped back on my phone and got in touch with my mother-in-law to let her know what happened and where we were. Once she arrived, I called the friend who picked BB up from school to ask her to take him home to my mom, called her to give her a crash course on working our TV over the phone, called my father-in-law to ask him to take BB to his baseball game, called BB's paternal grandmother to let her know about the game, then called my brother to update him on Bill's situation. Once my cell phone died, I collected water and snacks from the vending machine and headed back to Bill. Every now and then I had to pee (as pregnant women tend to do about every five minutes) but the one time I walked towards the bathroom an old man yelled out to me from his bed and what he said sent shivers down my spine. As I walked in front of his bed he yelled in what I think was a German accent, "Someone or something is after you!" I looked over to see him staring at me along with another older man in a brown suit and hat. This man was standing over the sick man with his hands held in front of him as if he were at a funeral. It creeped me out enough that I turned around and went back to Bill's bed. I did, however, have to refrain from yelling out, "I know!" after his ominous message. After all, at this point I am about ready to call in a priest to bless and or exorcise my house. Something's got to give. But after all the tests and all the waiting, we were told that there was no stroke. That was great news. They did however see swelling behind Bill's ear which was most likely the cause for the pressure and popping sensation. They didn't have a reason or even an idea as to why the swelling was there in the first place. Instead they told Bill to go home and call his doctor first thing in the morning.

We were happy that the problem isn't serious but frustrated that we don't have an answer to what was found. But what could we really expect from this hospital after all? Either way, we did get some confirmation, that obviously someone or something is after me. I guess I don't have to wonder about that anymore, huh?

It's Been A While

First, let me say thank you so much to everyone who has left comments and messages on my Zimbio account and on here. It seems that Murphy's Law has not yet left my life so getting on here to write has been next to impossible.

Just to give you all a run-down of what's been going on, a few weeks ago, my husband and I had to take Dare Devil for blood work which was a nightmare. He started getting A LOT of nose bleeds including one episode that happened while he was sleeping. I went in to get him in the morning and found him drenched in blood. His crib was a mess as well, it seriously looked like something out of a horror movie. Seeing as how my husband has a blood clotting disorder and went through bouts of serious nose bleeds when he was a kid, the doctor felt that we should get blood work done. Now I'd love to hear from any parents out there who have had to take their toddler for blood work because it was awful. I was so upset about the act of him getting blood drawn that I broke out in a rash all over my body. Thank God the ladies at the lab were quick with sticking him and collecting the tubes. After all of that though, I found out that the doctor had requested tests for general blood disorders but not for the disorder my husband has (which does run in the family by the way). He had spoken with a hematologist who gave us a list of precautions to take to avoid blood clots and offered to send DD back for more blood work. I said no and figured we'll wait until he's older. The blood work that was actually done came back normal which was a relief.

Remember the floods we had? Well about a month ago I found some wet papers on the floor of my home office which shares a wall with our laundry room. The more papers I went through, the worse the wetness along with mold, mildew and a God awful smell. Evidently water had come through the wall and half way across my office, soaking into the carpet and destroying a big bookcase. I spent about two weeks clearing out our office, throwing things away, salvaging what I could and cursing whatever hex has obviously been brought on my family. When all was said and done with this mess, my husband had to cut out a huge section of carpet that was ruined and throw out a large bookcase that had been a main source of storage. So my kitchen became a catch-all room and my living room became our dining room. We're still getting back to normal.

Remember the squirrels getting into the wall and roof? Well evidently one was a mother squirrel who had babies in my son's wall. My husband had started catching squirrels at night and then releasing them miles away from our home so they couldn't find their way back and from what I gather, one of the caught squirrels was this mother squirrel. I noticed a little baby squirrel roaming around my back porch one day and scooped it into a shoe box so I could set it free outside. Of course it can't be that easy though. No, this baby came back looking for me about twenty minutes later. After calling three separate wildlife rescue places and being told the charge for coming out to my house, I tried to just ignore the baby in hopes it would go away. Again, it can't be that easy. For two hours it sat inside my porch and cried! I finally felt so awful that I called a friend over for advice. After she handled the baby and I saw it wasn't out to gnaw anyone's face off, I decided to take care of it until it was old enough to fend for itself. I went out and bought puppy formula and began feeding it through a dropper. I'm sure I don't have to tell you that my husband was not exactly thrilled when he came home and found me harboring this evil little creature. That night, my husband left for a camping trip, not knowing he'd come home to four more baby squirrels. That's right, the next day I found the rest of them, peeking their little heads out from behind the siding outside my son's room. One by one they fell from up near the roof and began following me around. So I took them all in, making a nest out of some old towels and my son's old guinea pig cage. I'd go out every day and feed each one, then put them down for a nap. At night I'd check to make sure they were all ok then close the cage to keep out roaming neighborhood cats and other animals. Yes, it was quite a sight. They're getting so much bigger now and are eating on their own so we are going to take them away and set them free soon.

Things don't end there though, no way. I went for my usual twenty-week ultrasound and found out we're having a girl (yay!) but our happiness was dashed a week later when I received an upsetting phone call from my doctor. He told me that the tech found two cysts on the baby's brain. And basically it comes down to either the baby will be perfectly fine, or she'll have chromosomal abnormalities such as Down Syndrome or Edward's Syndrome but I needed to have more tests done before we'd know the risk. Waiting another three days for an ultrasound at the Antenatal Testing Unit (ATU) in the hospital felt like an eternity. I will write more about the experience in my pregnancy journal as it was a long appointment and there is a good bit to write. But basically the outcome was that the doctor wasn't positive that these marks are actually cysts. She wasn't positive that they aren't either. She offered the idea of having an amniocentesis done which is something my husband and I already discussed and decided against. So we were told our odds of there being a problem. The baby has a one in six-hundred and fifty chance of having Edward's and the chance for Down syndrome is even greater. The good news is that they saw no other sign indicating Edward's, the bad news is that we won't know for sure until the baby is born if there is a problem. Unfortunately with Edward's, most babies do not make it to term, they die in the womb. Those who survive usually die within the first couple of months of life. But I am going back to the ATU for another ultra long ultrasound in June and they'll look for any indicators of Edward's Syndrome. Other than that, the doctor told us to just put the possibilities of problems in the back of our heads and wait for the delivery. Of course that's easier said than done.

And after all of that, my kids and I were in a car accident two weeks ago. Coming home from my parents one night, we were plowed into by a woman claiming she never saw us. I have a van, she had a sports car and even though I saw her coming at me and slammed on my breaks (and leaned on my horn) she still hit us with enough force that she pushed us across the road almost into a parking lot. I jumped out once we stopped and unloaded on her for the shear fact that my kids were in the car. Once I was done flipping out, the reality of what had just happened set in and I started shaking pretty bad. There were a lot of people outside of a bar right in front of where it happened. They saw the whole thing and came running to check on me and my kids, they called the police for me, lent me a phone to call my husband, stayed with me until the police came and even brought out some candy for my kids. I was really glad they were there. I declined going to the hospital because we're there so much that they're about to give me a reserved parking spot. None of us were bleeding, nothing was broken. My kids being, well my kids, didn't even cry. In fact, Big Brother saw how upset I was and grabbed my hand telling me, "Mom, we're all ok. The accident could have been a lot worse. We're not hurt. Everything is going to be alright." He's the rational one obviously. So despite some aches and pains we're feeling much better now and my van is being repaired. That's going to take at least a week, wonderful.


So that's pretty much the rundown of my current situations and why I haven't been on here. But it is definitely therapeutic to come back and write. I wish I could keep my head together though. My brain is so foggy right now that I keep forgetting things. I feel like I'm in the early onset of Alzheimer's. I'm afraid my husband is going to commit me pretty soon if I can't get it together!

But again, thanks for keeping up with my blog (even if I didn't) and for all your comments and messages, it really does mean a lot to me!!

Loving Sarah Coventry

As I had mentioned in another post entitled "Sarah Coventry", I am a style consultant for this in-home jewelry business. I am not new to the in-home sales industry. I worked as a representative for Partylite candles for over a year and while I loved their product (and still do), it became harder and harder not only to transport all of the items for shows but to keep up with the minimum sales amount each month. There were really slow months when I found myself ordering from myself just to remain active. After my car accident and after becoming pregnant with Dare Devil, the amount of product was just too much to carry with me anymore.

Now, I only take two small tote bags with me to my jewelry shows. The tote bags are enough to carry the jewelry, the table cover, displays to hold the jewelry, folders with catalogs and order forms, pens, tickets for games, prizes and my binder. People are always surprised that I don't have more to carry into their homes. It is really a breath of fresh air. And this isn't even the best part about it all.

You all know that I am a stay-at-home mom, my kids come first and I try to make it to every event possible whether it's school related or sports. With this job, I set my own schedule and my own hours to work around my kids! And, I don't have to have a minimum in sales each month to remain active which is so great! Anyone who does or has done in-home sales knows how hard that can be. I took off work in December and January while we got through holidays, both kids being sick and me adjusting to the morning sickness, and now I am jumping right back in with no questions asked! Another wonderful thing is that as a consultant, I get to buy all the jewelry at 70% off! With Partylite we could buy things at 50% off the first time, but if we wanted to buy the same thing more than once we only got it for 30% off or had to pay full price. So this is really great. There are always incentives too. When I first started, I made over $1000 in sales within my first five weeks so I earned $100 in free credit and this beautiful ring. I thought I was going to have to use that credit to buy things at full price like other in-home sales businesses make their consultants do, but no! I could use my $100 towards jewelry that I got at 70% off! You should see how much jewelry I was able to get!

A lady from the corporate office flew here to visit with our newly formed branch on Saturday and she was the nicest, most personable person ever. There were a lot of benefits I didn't know about yet, such as the 70% off of jewelry we get as consultants but also a medical insurance plan available to us. That peaked my cousin-in-law's interest since she recently became a stay-at-home mom. There are also incentive trips which are easier to earn with this company than other companies. And one of the really great things I've dealt with so far was communication. Any question I've had, no matter how simple was dealt with right away. I've sent many e-mails to corporate since starting and they've always been answered within a few hours, which was amazing.

The benefits for hostesses is also out of this world. When you book a show, you earn $50 in credit just for having a show over $300. On top of that you also get 20% of the sales from your show in credit. You earn half-priced items also as a hostess and lately Sarah Coventry has been running double hostess credit months so instead of getting 20%, you get 40%! (February is a double hostess credit month and I'm having a show myself so I can get paid and get a lot of free jewelry!) On top of that, there is always a really beautiful piece of jewelry given to the hostess for free if her show is over a certain amount, which by the way isn't hard. The average show is $500. The people in attendance at the shows also benefit big time. Lately, Sarah Coventry has been running specials such as, Buy Two Get Two at Half Off and Spend Over $75, Get Your Next Item at 75% Off! The great thing about that is that it can be the most expensive thing you pick out. They won't make you get the cheapest item at the discounted price!
And here's another fantastic thing about Sarah Coventry, all of the jewelry gets shipped right to the customers themselves. As a hostess you don't have to sort everyone's orders and deliver them like with other companies.

We're just starting up our branch here and we are literally sitting on a gold mine. It is inevitable that in-home sales companies will grow because of how popular they are. It helps that Sarah Coventry has been around since 1949 also. They used to be an in-home sales business until they began selling in stores like JC Penny. But in 2003 they became in-home sales again and anyone coming into this business now as a consultant is going to make a lot of money. If you've done in-home sales before then you've heard about and maybe even met the women who were top leaders making $100,000 + a year. Well that's because they came into the business when it was ground floor and moving up. Now is the perfect time to become a Sarah Coventry Style Consultant, you are bound to make money, and a lot of it. I've added a link to my personal Sarah Coventry page on this blog. Check out the beautiful jewelry! If you are at all interested in becoming a consultant, e-mail me at Lifeofawife@gmail.com . Or even if you have any questions or want to buy some jewelry. This really is a great company to be involved in!

Murphy's Law At Its Worst

Here is a definition of Murphy's Law from Wikipedia : "It is most often cited as "Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong" (or, alternately, "Whatever can go wrong will go wrong, and at the worst possible time, in the worst possible way" I can honestly attest to this statement as how this past week played out for me and my family.

The week started out with my husband trapping a squirrel in our roof. He didn't do it on purpose, in fact, he took a good look into the roof from the point of entrance with a flashlight and only nailed the area shut when he saw no signs of the squirrel at all. Evidently the poor creature was sleeping somewhere inside our roof and woke up in the middle of the night to discover it couldn't get out. So it began ferociously scratching and clawing at the end of our roof where it use to come and go as it pleased. Two and a half hours later, it was still scratching, a little slower, but still determined. I convinced my husband to open the roof back up and let it out. He did, but saw no squirrel. So he decided to leave the area open for a day until he was sure it was gone and then nail it shut again. For a few days we heard no signs of the squirrel and assumed it had left. Of course that would be too easy.

When I walked past Big Brother's room the one day, I heard the tell-tale scratching noise, only this time it was coming from BB's wall which is on the opposite side of the house from where the squirrel was originally living. So I told my husband, whose name is Bill by the way, and he swore he'd take care of it. That was before we knew we'd be rushing Dare Devil to the hospital.

I had taken DD to the doctors early in the week because he had a very bad cough that wouldn't go away, instead it kept getting worse. DD was diagnosed with asthma last winter before he even turned a year old because of the amount of times he had to be admitted to the hospital for upper respiratory problems. When other kids simply get a cold, DD gets a cold, bronchitis, RSV, croup, pertussis, etc. And on most occasions, he gets more than one virus at a time. It's even harder when BB is bringing different sicknesses home from school. He loves his little brother to death and you'd think that I took away the sun whenever I've asked him to keep his distance from DD. So he is just bound to get sick. The first time we went to the doctors, they sent him for chest x-rays to check for pneumonia, they came out negative so we were told to put him on his nebulizer three times day. Two days later though he could barely breath. The doctor thought it was his asthma acting up and told us to get him to the hospital. So off we went. The doctors there admitted him for over night observation and took x-rays. They told us he had croup and gave him a steroid that was supposed to "work wonders". That was Thursday night to Friday morning. By Saturday I saw no difference, in fact, he seemed to get worse still. He wasn't sleeping, he was barely eating and he was coughing so bad his lips would turn blue. So Saturday night, Bill went up to check on him after he fell asleep and walked in as DD started coughing. Bill yelled for me and I could hear how bad the cough was and the fact that there was no air going back into DD's lungs. DD turned blue so I ran into the bathroom and started to run the hot water in the tub in the hopes of getting steam to open his airway. (This had been recommended by the hospital for when he was having trouble breathing.) The steam was taking too long and DD still wasn't breathing so Bill ran outside into the cold with him. (Also recommended by the hospital). While he was outside I called 911 in hysterics telling them that my baby had turned blue. They said an ambulance was on its way. As soon as I hung up, DD was throwing up and crying which was a good sign. There was finally some air going into his lungs. So I started thinking about what I had to grab for the hospital before the ambulance arrived. I heard the tub still running in the bathroom so I threw my sneakers on and ran upstairs to shut it off. I don't know if it was my pajama pants or the doorway itself but I tripped running into the bathroom and slammed my face into the edge of the tub.

I felt myself passing out until the blood began gushing out of my face and onto the floor. I know I've mentioned this before, but I'm not good with blood. That snapped me out of it and I started screaming for Bill. He came running in thinking I was just upset about DD, yelling "He's ok, he's breathing!" I managed to yell "Blood!" He pulled my face back to assess the damage and after saying, "Oh my God!" held a towel to my face. He called across the street to his parents and asked for his dad to come over and help. Both parents came just as the paramedics arrived. Bill met them at the door and explained that, hey, by the way, my wife needs to be taken to the hospital too. So one paramedic looked at me while the other looked at DD. They were calling me Rocky because my eye had swelled pretty bad and there was blood gushing down my face. DD and I wound up riding in the same ambulance to the hospital. My mother-in-law came too, thank God. Not only was I scared for DD but also for myself. The second I heard one of the paramedics mention stitches, I almost lost it. It was a huge help having her there too because her and Bill took turns with me and DD. (We were down the hall from each other.) They wound up doing an ultrasound on me to check the baby and then a CAT scan on my brain and liver to check for internal bleeding. (I was having a lot of pain.) Everything came back alright and the doctor gave me eight stitches above my left eyebrow. (see pictures) The pediatrician came in to talk to me about DD, saying he sounded like he had pertussis but seeing as how he had it last winter, it was unlikely that he would get it again. So he decided that he must have a really bad upper respiratory infection, causing mucous to choke him. I think him turning blue was a little severe to just be caused by mucous, but I'm not a doctor. So we all headed back home at six in the morning. But things don't end there, oh no, of course not.

A Couple Days After The Incident

Day 4
The Day After My Stitches Came Out

Sunday night, after watching the Superbowl, BB headed up to bed. He ran right back out saying there was something weird on his wall. Bill went to inspect and at first didn't realize what it was. I knew though right away before even seeing it that it had to be something caused by that squirrel. Sure enough, the vengeful squirrel living in the wall scratched two holes through BB's bedroom wall. After Bill vacuumed up BB's room, I taped over the holes with packing tape, hoping to temporarily solve the problem. Of course the next day the packing tape was moved away from the holes. So at the suggestion of DD's doctor (who put DD on an antibiotic for ten days for this mucous mess), I stuffed brillo pads in the holes. The brillo pads haven't been moved but I can still hear the squirrel scratching away in there. Oh, and it still doesn't end there.

The other morning while giving BB his breakfast and packing his backpack, I ran the dishwasher like I usually do. Right before Bill left to take him to school, he ran down to the kitchen to find a flood half way across our kitchen floor. "You've got to be kidding me!" He yelled. When I saw the flood, all I could do was laugh. If I didn't laugh, I would have cried. So I ran upstairs and grabbed every towel we own and began laying them out on the floor. Bill left to take BB to school and I decided to switch some laundry over while he was gone. Our laundry room is right off of our kitchen by the way. When I opened the door, I gasped. The entire laundry room was flooded as well. Seriously, what the hell?! So I called Bill and warned him before he came home and saw it himself. Here we are a few minutes later, me with my head wound, morning sickness and both of us having had no sleep for about a week, cleaning up two floods. Turns out that it is our pipes. Like everything else in our house, the people before us rigged the pipes under our yard instead of completely fixing them and now we're going to have to have the entire yard and part of the sidewalk dug up and the pipes completely replaced. Of course we don't have money for that so for the time being, my wonderful brother came over and used a snake to get through the pipes so water can flow.

Let's recap, in one week we had:

• Four trips to the doctor (including one follow-up with my GYN)
• Two trips to the hospital
• One call to 911
• One blue baby
• One head wound
• One major squirrel problem
• Two floods
  

I'm about to build an ark, stick my whole family on there and wait for the major flood. Ever had so much bad luck in one weeks time? We still have to get rid of the squirrel and Tommy still has yet to get better from this antibiotic he's on. At least my stitches came out yesterday and the doctor said he doesn't think I'll have a scar. So that's a little bit of good news. But my God! What is going on???

No More Football?

As most of my regular readers know, my son, Big Brother, played football for the past two years. I love watching him play because it's so obvious that he loves the sport and practically lives for it. As I type this, he is upstairs playing Madden 08 on his Xbox 360 because it's too cold and windy to play football outside. Everyday in my house consists of ESPN, discussions on who Big Brother thinks will win the next NFL game, and of course now it's all about the Superbowl, and usually me yelling at him for throwing one of the hundreds of footballs we own through the living room. Basically there aren't too many minutes out of the day that don't involve football in some way.

But, to my shock and disappointment, BB doesn't want to play this upcoming season. As soon as last season ended he began slipping it in there that he didn't want to sign up again. I was floored and at first said no way to him quitting. But the more he talked about not wanting to be on the team, the more upset he got. When I asked him why this drastic decision, he thought about it and then began giving me really weak excuses. He said that he isn't good at doing push ups and they do a lot of those at practice. He said the coaches yell too much but that was one of the things he originally thought was great. There were a few other things thrown out there that I just didn't buy and the more I probed for the real reason, the more he clammed up. So I had left it at waiting until the season got closer to decide.

BB, is now in basketball and absolutely loving it. At one practice I mentioned to the basketball coach's wife who happens to be a friend that BB was thinking about not going back to football this year. She said that her son who is one of BB's best friends also didn't want to go back. It had been his first year so it was tough and he wasn't use to all the yelling and the boot camp style practices so I could understand his hesitation. But I explained that it was totally unlike BB to want to back out. Then she told me that some of the coaches had been going too far with the way they spoke to the kids (who were all six-years-old). She said there had been a lot of foul language and other parents had complained, but that also, at least one of the coaches was being particularly hard on BB. She had overheard a few things and her own son had even come to her out of concern for BB because he saw the way the coaches were treating him. Evidently BB was being told or I should say yelled at on a regular basis about not living up to his potential. They threatened to take him out of his position and pretty much every other position because he wasn't doing well enough. Supposedly there was some cursing at him also along with a lot of other negative comments that really broke his spirits.

It all began to make sense then. When something really bothers BB he tends to keep it to himself. He doesn't like telling on other people, especially people who are considered teachers or coaches which would explain why he didn't tell me the extent of what was going on. I expect the coaches to yell, it keeps the kids in line and gets them pumped up. What I don't expect is the foul language and verbal abuse. They are, after all, very young kids. I stopped bugging BB about football after that and told my husband about what I had heard. We both agreed that if he didn't want to play, we wouldn't push the subject.

Word spread though that he wasn't planning to come back. Other parents have grabbed me outside school and at birthday parties, asking if it was true that BB wasn't going to play this year. And yesterday, one of the head coaches came up to BB outside school to try and convince him to stay. BB opened up a little more to him than to me and I explained what all I had heard after he went to play with his friends. The coach was shocked. He swore that he didn't know and that it wasn't right to talk to kids that way. He said he wasn't going to give up on trying to get BB on the team (which I had warned BB about). He also told BB that if something like that ever happened again to come tell him and he'd back him up.

On the way home, I told BB what I had been told and he confirmed it and told me which coach had been so nasty to him. Now, just to paint a picture for you, this coach is a large man. He's tall and extremely muscular and I don't think I've ever seen him smile. I, as an adult am slightly scared of him. So imagine a six-year-old with this big guy screaming in his face and putting him down. That's pretty bad. I told BB to think about what his other coach had said about coming back this year and to make a decision because sign-ups are already happening. Of course BB decided that he doesn't want to be there but wants to watch the games and see him friends play.

It's really a shame that one hot head can ruin the way a child looks at his favorite sport.

My Opinion Is My Freedom

Over the past few months I have joined a large online community of bloggers. Here, we can write about anything our hearts desire. If something is bothering or confusing us, we can openly debate about it with other people. If we need advice or or reassurance, we can type it here for all to read and comment on. And if we are going through an exciting time in our lives, we can post our happiness much like screaming it from the top of a building.

Along with well-wishers, and people who want to let us know that we're not alone in our situations, also comes the negativity and skepticism of those who feel that nothing will ever be worthy of praise. I admit that I did let the negativity affect me and for a moment make me feel that my writing is not "good enough". But that was only for a moment. Over the past few months that I've been on here, I have connected with many, many other bloggers. Out of all of those bloggers, I really connected with a few in particular. Other creative folks that have the same outlook and interests as me. I respect their work greatly as I do their opinions. When I post something new, I look forward to any comments or suggestions from them. What I didn't expect and am extremely grateful for is that when I began to doubt myself, they were quick to remind me that not everyone will like what I write but that doesn't mean that I'm not good at what I do. They pumped me up and even went to bat for me!

So I will continue to write about whatever seems interesting, important, funny, or honest. This is my God given right as a human being and the overall response that I've gotten from people is that what I write is liked, and appreciated. I'm sure I will at times still feel the blows from negative people, but I will remind myself of all of the good, kind people who have come across my posts and articles. This is what I love to do. I'm not going to let anyone make me feel like I shouldn't be on here.