The signs are all there, you just need to know what you're looking for

I've said it before - I believe in signs. I think it goes back to my Catholic upbringing. Something about all those saints finding the image of Jesus or Mary in a tree stump or loaf of bread and seeing it as the sign to give their lives to God. I saw a dragonfly. I see it as a sign of good things to come. I may be deluding myself but I think we all need something to believe in and since I gave up religion for the time being, it's going to have to be insects.

Or this! This weekend is National Alpaca Farm Day. It's a little strange that a "day" is actually being held over two days, but when you're living the farm life I guess you can be a little loosey goosey about those things. I don't need someone to hit me over the head with a tree stump with the image of Jesus riding an alpaca on it. If this weekend is National Alpaca Farm Day and I just so happen to have been thinking of starting my own alpaca farm then someone's trying to tell me something.

But I think it's this sign I should be paying attention to:


You don't have to beat me over the head with a stump. Right now you could knock me over with a feather. I guess fate had a plan for us all along.

A waste of life

A few weeks ago a horrible act occurred in my hometown. It not only happened in the town I grew up in, the place that helped define who I am today, but it happened steps away from my grandmother's home.

A woman, whose face I recognized from the hallways of my high school, allegedly killed her two year old daughter. The girl was found in her mother's apartment with multiple bruises to the face, neck and torso and could not be revived. I won't go into what the neighbors speculate happened to the girl, but as I sat in my grandmother's living room listening to the rumors I held Chicky in my lap tighter and tighter and the knot in my stomach threatened to evict the lunch I had just eaten. It's just too horrible to think about.

After we become parents news of a child's brutal death affects us in such a way to bring the Mama or Papa Bear out of even the most placid person. But when it happens so close to home, in a neighborhood where I spent a good portion of my formative years playing pickle in the street, where my sister and I and cousins and friends spent our falls throwing horse chestnuts at each other... Well, I don't know quite how to describe how I felt. Violated? Betrayed?

Yes, this does have to do with me. Not just because it happened in a place where I am familiar but because I am a mother. I know what it feels like to want to squeeze the arm of my child a little tighter than is necessary, hoping the pressure will stop whatever tantrum is happening in its tracks. I know what level of frustration a toddler can drive you to. I know the ugly thoughts that can pop into an otherwise rational woman's head when her child is wailing for seemingly no good reason and can not be consoled.

But I can not understand how a woman can (allegedly) beat the life out of her child.

According to the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS) data for 2004 children under four accounted for 81% of fatalities due to abuse and neglect. They are the most vulnerable because of their dependency, size and inability to defend themselves. And one or both parents were involved in 78.9 percent of child abuse or neglect fatalities.

Deaths from abuse and neglect are often from chronic extended malnourishment, acute neglect - like a child left unsupervised in bathtub who drowns - or physical abuse.

The study goes on to say: "There is no single profile of a perpetrator of fatal child abuse, although certain characteristics reappear in many studies. Frequently, the perpetrator is a young adult in his or her mid-20s, without a high school diploma, living at or below the poverty level, depressed, and who may have difficulty coping with stressful situations. In many instances, the perpetrator has experienced violence first-hand. Most fatalities from physical abuse are caused by fathers and other male caretakers. Mothers are most often responsible for deaths resulting from child neglect."

In this particular case the woman was not well off, the father was not in the picture (he is in jail himself for something unrelated), there is speculation of drug use and previous depression. But abuse, as said above, knows no socio-economic boundaries. It goes back to the saying "You need a license to drive a car, catch a fish, or own a dog but anyone can be a parent". It could happen anywhere, in any neighborhood. This case just happened to occur in a neighborhood I am very familiar with. And it troubles me.

My grandmother did not know of any prior abuse. She didn't know the woman and her child as they were relatively new to the neighborhood, and never saw anything out of the ordinary. The woman's friends all called her a "loving mother", though some changed their tune after being present at the arraignment.

But I'm willing to bet that if there was prior abuse someone knew about it.

If you know of a child being abused, or you suspect that one is, please contact the appropriate authorities. Call your local Child Protective Services (CPS) agency. This site has a list of hotline numbers by state. Or contact your local police and they'll point you in the right direction.

Or if you are close to someone, a mother or a father, who is close to the deep end help them get help.

I'm not an expert on this subject, just a concerned parent. If you know of any information that might be helpful to someone in this situation please add it in the comments and I'll also add it to this post.

So this toddler walks into a bar and says gahblaslkjdlkjelj!

In my mid-20s, while taking a break from the media business, I was bartending at a local country club, pulling in a (very) modest wage from the twenty-five cent tips so graciously left for me by the elderly golfers and faring better monetarily during the weekend wedding gigs and holiday parties. It wasn't going to make me rich but it was a good job and I enjoyed my time working there.

One afternoon after tending to a boring, though, strangely fascinating reception where an 85 year old woman and her wheelchair-bound 90 year old husband renewed their wedding vows on site (The bride wore her old wedding dress. Oh yes she did.) I had a lull toward the end of my shift. Part of my job was to restock the liquor bottles when the bar got low from the store room in the cold, stone basement, so I grabbed my empty Tanqueray box and headed for the cellar door.

Through poor design the basement door was located directly in the path of the kitchen door. If left open the door would be in the way of the waitresses rushing into the kitchen with their empty trays ready to be filled with dry wedding chicken or baked scrod. So leaving the door open would mean unhappy waitresses, which would mean a stingy payout to me, the humble bartender, at the end of our shift.

As I started down the first few steps with my unwieldy box I realized I had left the door ajar. I took a step up to close it, then turned and - for some reason that still to this day I don't understand - I chose to step not onto the stair in front of me but the step in front of that. The forward momentum propelled me down the rest of the stairs, ass over teakettle, and I landed with a thump on the concrete slab at the bottom. But not before I cracked my head open on the exposed rock wall.

I lay there stunned and bleeding (head wounds bleed like a sumofabeech but thankfully I think I was only knocked out for a few seconds) and afraid to move, until someone heard my cries for help through the now closed door. I laid there until the EMTs put me on a backboard and brought me to the emergency room. And I laid there cracking jokes to put everyone else at ease.

Hi! I could have a broken back, but did you hear the one about the priest, the rabbi and the duck who walked into a bar...

I wasn't trying to be strong, really, it's a defense mechanism. Whenever something gets uncomfortable I make jokes. Usually self-deprecating ones. On that day I think I probably made fun of my clumsiness and my inability to see things spatially, and probably the 12 inch crack in the stone I made with my thick skull.

That poor rock, just minding its own business...

Unfortunately, it's not a trait that I've grown out of and whenever I have to go see the doctor, any doctor for any reason, I'll usually undermine the severity of the situation by poking fun of myself. I make it very hard on myself to get an accurate diagnosis.

To make a long story short, I was fine. I have back problems and the occasional migraine that I didn't experience before, but I healed quickly. However, this story has nothing to do with my health or my back and everything to do with Chicky.

Didn't see that coming, did you? Neither did the rock.

(See?? There I go again! It's a sickness. I can't stop.)

The other day during her two year well visit I told the pediatrician that I was concerned about Chicky's speech development. She's speaking, just not nearly as well as most of her peers.

It's probably nothing, I told the pediatrician. I'm sure she's fine and just taking her own sweet time...

But I can't ignore the red flags popping up whenever I hear Chicky say "Dat" instead of "Cat". My kid can't say "cat". She can say other things, but not "cat"? And she speaks very simply, with very few sentences.

I'm sure we'll have a great laugh about that when Chicky grows up. It will be our little joke - Hey! Wook at dat Dat! Ha! That'll be hilarious when she's 16! Of course, not if she's still talking like that. Not that she would but...

I don't want to seem like an overprotective mom...

I'm sure she's fine...

But...

So there I was, trying to talk myself out of getting help for my daughter by joking about being a neurotic mother who can't stop hovering over her child. Thankfully her pediatrician saw right through me and recommended a call to Early Intervention.

You know, just in case. It's probably nothing, but better safe than sorry.

God help me, if it would have been for me I would have shrugged off the idea of a specialist. I would have poo poo'd the whole idea. It's fine. I'm fine. It's all fine. But for my daughter I can't live like that. I've got to start changing my ways. Chicky is going to see a specialist.

And if it's nothing I won't feel badly for taking up that specialist's time.

Now, if I can just convince myself of that.

Until then I'd better brush up on my knock knock jokes.