This One Might Get A Bit...Well...Bit%cy...Consider Yourselves Warned!

I have had so many reasons to get up on my soapbox lately. The problem is, I haven't had the energy to climb up there, nevermind unload all of my ramblings once I get there.

I guess my first gripe would have to be about that lady that just gave birth to eight babies, making her offspring total a whopping 14 children.

Here's my thing and if I offend you, I do hope you forgive me sooner or later and come back. I'm usually not this serious but there are just times when one needs to bitch and my time has come.

I had a doctors appointment this morning and as I was sitting in the waiting room, trying to control the weemonkey, I overhear on CNN on the TV, that the lady that just squished out eight babies is planning to support her family with her food stamps.

Listen, I know that times are tough and everyone hits a rough patch and you've gotta do what you gotta do to put food in your babies mouths.

But from what CNN said, she's had this plan since she went in there and told them to put every live embryo within a 100 mile radius in her uterus and to wish her luck!

I have no problem with the fact that she's a single mom. Sometimes a womans life doesn't go the way they planned but they still want to be a mother, husband or no, and science has given them a way to do that. I was actually raised by a single mom from the time I was 12 until I married and move out on my own. My mom had no college degrees. She was a beautician in the 60's but she really couldn't fall back on that since nobody was looking for a sky high teased beehive in the early 90's. Oh, if only Amy Winehouse had come along sooner!

So, to make ends meet, my mom spent her days working as a secretary in a Real Estate Office and her evenings were spent working at a Wendy's. You should have seen our dog go nuts every night mom came home from her evening job! That dog would barely let mom in the door before she started licking every inch of mom's shoes, lower pants legs, and when mom changed, the dog tried to devour her shirt and hat. The point is, my mom suddenly found herself divorced, unemployed, raising a rebellious teenage daughter, living in a house that had a mortgage she didn't think she could pay, and she was scared to death.

But instead of doing nothing and running to the government offices (I honestly have no idea who passes out the food stamps) mom went out and filled out applications for any place that had employees. And she was exhausted by the time she got home from working her second job of the day, but she was making it on her own. I can only imagine what the must have felt like.

** On A Side Note: You know, I bet that's why food scented perfumes have never been big. Guys probably loved it when their ladies smelled like a nice New York Strip, the problem was, dogs loved them even more!**

Amyway, the single mom thing is not my problem.

My problem is that the government will pay for this woman to help support her growing family. The more she pops out, the more money she gets. It wasn't like she accidently got pregnant with eight babies. It was all very much planned. And now she has 14 children, her mother seems to be a bit of a psycho, and our tax dollars are paying for all of it.

On the other hand, here I am, diagnosed with MS, unable to walk most of the time, unable to get a job, and paying an arm and a leg once a month to get my Tysabri infusions. That's ONE medication. That's not even counting the Provigil for fatigue, the anti-depressant to treat the depression that comes from MS and the depression that comes from the medications that I'm taking for MS. Then there's pain medicine, baquelofen (spelled that one wrong) for spacsticity, co-pays for the endless doctors visits, the walker, the scooter, the cane, the handicap accessible bathroom renovation.

The government didn't offer to help us with that.

And to make it worse, until I became a mother, I went to work at some sort of job from the age of 16. At 21, I was blessed to become a mother and married to a man who had the same family values and thought it was important for me to be a stay-at-home mother.

In the beginning, it was a hard road to travel. The baby had all these allergies and needed a special formula that was $25 a can and she went through a can and a half a day. I was clipping coupons for everything on my list and if I didn't have a coupon, that item didn't make the list.

When I quit working, I got a pamphlet in the mail saying that I had all of the required credits if I should ever become disabled. Imagine my surprise when I called a few months ago and was told that since all but two of those credits were earned BEFORE I turned 21, they didn't count. Magically disappeared. And now, I've got nothing.

I can't get any kind of government assistance at all. And yet, this woman can choose to have more children and she gets foodstamps, not to mention that she'll probably get WIC while those eight babies are little. Then she'll get a book deal or a reality TV show and have more money than I'll ever see in my lifetime. And I'll still be sitting here, worrying about how I'm going to pay for my next prescription.

Liberty and Justice For All....You don't say......

Another thing that's been bothering me is that I've been getting told from all different angles that I need to find a daycare for my 2 year old son for my "bad days".

For a while, I tried to convince myself that I agreed with everyone.

But then I sat down and thought "What do I want and what would be best for the weemonkey?"

I decided that I couldn't make any kind of informed decisions without going and checking one out. The place was run by the owner/only employee and she seemed really nice. She only takes in 8 kids at a time and I thought a small group could be good. The place was clean, the toys were newer and seemed to have all parts intact. There was a lot of natural light, great views out the windows. Healthy snacks and meals were served.

Maybe this could work.

Then I stood back and watched the dynamic of this facility. Well, I was told to stand where none of the kids could see me "Maybe it will help you and your son finally cut that cord!" she said.

I watched as every half hour to 45 minutes, the owner/only employee would open on of the second story windows where she already had the screen popped out. She would then lean out the window as far as she could and smoke 1 or 2 ciggarettes. Her back to the kids, she didn't know that a lot of them noticed what she was doing, hanging out the window like that, and by the looks on their faces, they thought that looked like fun.

Then it was snack time. She brings out 10 cups of juice and sets them on a child height table. Then she leaves and returns with a tray of fruits and veggies and a bowl of ranch dressing. She leaves this on the child height table with the cups. Then she remembers that she was supposed to take one of the kids to the potty twenty minutes ago and rushes him off to the bathroom.

I then watched in horror as these two kids, who were obviously sick, meander over to the table and drink out of every cup. Then on grabbed a carrot. He sucked on it for a minute and then stuck it in the ranch dressing bowl. Then he sucked the dressing off of the carrot twice before putting the carrot back on the tray with the other carrots. The other child kept sticking his grubby hands in the ranch dressing, licking the dressing off, and then repeating about a gagillion times.

When the owner/only employee finally came back, I told her about the food bandits and she laughed and said "Oh, you must have just thought they did that! They wouldn't take a flea if they thought it belonged to a dog! hahahahahhahahahaha"

I coyly walked over to my enormous purse/bag and grabbed a bag of fruit snacks, some animal crackers, and the weemonkey's sippy cup and that was his snack. I'm sure he's the only one that was there that day that doens't have a stream of neon green snot coming out of their noses. YUCK!!!

Now, I know that not all daycares are like this. And I do understand that some people have no choice but to use daycare so they can work. But I have to say, I was ashamed at myself because the reason I was looking at a daycare was because sometimes I have bad days and need to take naps to make it through.

Then I started looking back over those bad days and realized that they weren't so bad.

The weeman loves to nap so when I took a nap, he was right beside me, snoring away.

And while on a normal day, I read six or more books to him, on these bad days I always read atleast two. He was given snacks and lunches that hadn't already been tasted, and he was the only one drinking out of his cup.

We still practiced writing and did his ABC flashcards that he loves. And he always seemed happy, never cheated.

So, why do I need to take him to a daycare where someone isn't going to watch him as well as I do or know what he's trying to say when he's speaking caveman?

All of that being said, I've decided that, while I do have MS, it hasn't taken my ability to be a mother away from me.

No daycare for us. Thank you for the concerns but it's just not going to happen.

As I've said before, sometime MS might get me down but don't ever count me out. I'm still kicking ass here!