As I was sitting in the train station pissed off because I had just missed my train home, I received a text message telling me Happy Birthday. It was from him, he was home, and he didn't tell me he was coming home. Best birthday present, EVER.
Monday, February 7, 2011
Tattoo'd on my birthday
As I was sitting in the train station pissed off because I had just missed my train home, I received a text message telling me Happy Birthday. It was from him, he was home, and he didn't tell me he was coming home. Best birthday present, EVER.
It's 6 am and these are the things I think about............
First off, WTF is wrong with kids these days? Brooklynne got her hearing aids last week like she was soooo excited about. Pretty little baby pink hearing aids with bubble gum pink ear molds with pink glitter with white kitty stickers she so eagerly put on them to claim them as her own. Finally, my daughter can hear the world as it was meant to be heard.
We have a fairly quiet ride back to Battle Creek from Kalamazoo. I ask her if she has any questions before I take her to school and she says no. I explain to her things may seem loud right now, but she will get used to it and she is really only hearing what she hasn't heard before. As I sign her into school nervously, I notice she seems a tad nervous herself. My motherly instinct wants to stay with her and make sure her protective bubble stays in tact, but of course, that's not possible. I give her a hug and a kiss, and she's on her own.
She comes home from school and tells me everything went just fine. Mike had to leave for his drill that night, but stayed long enough to see them and to see how her day went. She tells us that the kids liked them, that a teacher came in and explained to the class what Brooklynne's hearing aids were and why she had them. Brooklynne even got a stuffed otter from the hearing aid place with his own hearing aids. She isn't happy about him being a boy though, and stripped him of his clothes and has been making paper dresses and bows for her otter. Easy enough sex change, I suppose.
Then comes the snow day and the meltdown inside the house when there is a foot of snow outside.
Brooklynne begins crying her eyes out and bares her sweet soul to be about a little girl named Kennedy who told Brooklynne at recess that her hearing aids were ugly and went around to other little girls trying to get them to think they were ugly to. Now, my sweet little princess has went from an excited little girl who can finally hear to a self conscious crying 7 year old who thinks she is ugly and hates her life. She seriously told me, she hates her life. I instantly want to march down to Kennedy's house and ring her little neck. My heart is broken in a million pieces for my little girl. She is crying and crying. Wants to know why no one else has them, why no one in the family has them (except grandma), she doesn't want to be the only one in her class with them, she thinks she is ugly and no one is going to want to be friends with her now.
Dear Miss Kennedy, I have went on suicides of teenagers because of rotten comments like yours. There are no words I can use to describe having to look at a parent of a child who has just walked in to find their son or daughter dead because of the bullying they have gotten at school because of kids like you. I realize you are young, and I made sure the issue has been addressed but I promise you, I am not a mother to be reckoned with and NO ONE will bully my child. You will not like the discussion I have with your parents if I hear of such comments being made toward my daughter again.
See, I was always that kid that stuck up for those that were different. I was popular, but not because I was in the "clique", I was popular because I was in everybody's "clique". It truly amazes me how young kids are starting with this stuff now a days. I mean, really, it's horrible. Just horrible.
My heart breaks for her because I wonder how many times she is going to have to deal with this. I can only hope that she will truly see how beautiful she is and that girls like Kennedy, don't matter. Girls like her are insignificant little nothings who don't realize that their whole world can change in an instant. My job keeps me from being jaded in that way. I've watched so many lives changed in a matter of moments and I've been the one to deliver the news multiple times that despite my best efforts, their loved one's heart would not start beating again. I've delivered the news to a wife of a WWII vet that the noise she heard from her front yard in her back yard was not her husband of 63 years falling, it was the sound of a revolver that he just put to his head because he was afraid of going to a nursing home and becoming a burden. It sucks, there are no other words for it other than, it sucks. I do that job 12 plus hours a day, 4 days a week.
When Mike was still deployed I remember one weekend that just sucked, and I mean SUCKED at work. 2 working cardiac arrests (meaning we did CPR, defibrillated, gave drugs, intubated, got pulses back and transported, the works) and 2 pretty severe trauma's. Those calls are fun really, and it's what I'm trained for, but it's draining. Mentally and physically, I was spent. I felt like I had just went 8 rounds with Tyson. Now imagine my boy overseas doing that days and days on end, non stop with no sleep and the people that are getting hurt and dying around you aren't people that you only just met because someone called 911 for help, they are your brothers that you live with. I can't even begin to imagine it.
Life is precious and so are the people that you have in it. When you think you have it bad, suck it up and stop feeling sorry for yourself. Treat other's like you would want to be treated. Mostly, don't be an asshole unless the person really deserves it, because you never know what's coming around the corner next for you.
We have a fairly quiet ride back to Battle Creek from Kalamazoo. I ask her if she has any questions before I take her to school and she says no. I explain to her things may seem loud right now, but she will get used to it and she is really only hearing what she hasn't heard before. As I sign her into school nervously, I notice she seems a tad nervous herself. My motherly instinct wants to stay with her and make sure her protective bubble stays in tact, but of course, that's not possible. I give her a hug and a kiss, and she's on her own.
She comes home from school and tells me everything went just fine. Mike had to leave for his drill that night, but stayed long enough to see them and to see how her day went. She tells us that the kids liked them, that a teacher came in and explained to the class what Brooklynne's hearing aids were and why she had them. Brooklynne even got a stuffed otter from the hearing aid place with his own hearing aids. She isn't happy about him being a boy though, and stripped him of his clothes and has been making paper dresses and bows for her otter. Easy enough sex change, I suppose.
Then comes the snow day and the meltdown inside the house when there is a foot of snow outside.
Brooklynne begins crying her eyes out and bares her sweet soul to be about a little girl named Kennedy who told Brooklynne at recess that her hearing aids were ugly and went around to other little girls trying to get them to think they were ugly to. Now, my sweet little princess has went from an excited little girl who can finally hear to a self conscious crying 7 year old who thinks she is ugly and hates her life. She seriously told me, she hates her life. I instantly want to march down to Kennedy's house and ring her little neck. My heart is broken in a million pieces for my little girl. She is crying and crying. Wants to know why no one else has them, why no one in the family has them (except grandma), she doesn't want to be the only one in her class with them, she thinks she is ugly and no one is going to want to be friends with her now.
Dear Miss Kennedy, I have went on suicides of teenagers because of rotten comments like yours. There are no words I can use to describe having to look at a parent of a child who has just walked in to find their son or daughter dead because of the bullying they have gotten at school because of kids like you. I realize you are young, and I made sure the issue has been addressed but I promise you, I am not a mother to be reckoned with and NO ONE will bully my child. You will not like the discussion I have with your parents if I hear of such comments being made toward my daughter again.
See, I was always that kid that stuck up for those that were different. I was popular, but not because I was in the "clique", I was popular because I was in everybody's "clique". It truly amazes me how young kids are starting with this stuff now a days. I mean, really, it's horrible. Just horrible.
My heart breaks for her because I wonder how many times she is going to have to deal with this. I can only hope that she will truly see how beautiful she is and that girls like Kennedy, don't matter. Girls like her are insignificant little nothings who don't realize that their whole world can change in an instant. My job keeps me from being jaded in that way. I've watched so many lives changed in a matter of moments and I've been the one to deliver the news multiple times that despite my best efforts, their loved one's heart would not start beating again. I've delivered the news to a wife of a WWII vet that the noise she heard from her front yard in her back yard was not her husband of 63 years falling, it was the sound of a revolver that he just put to his head because he was afraid of going to a nursing home and becoming a burden. It sucks, there are no other words for it other than, it sucks. I do that job 12 plus hours a day, 4 days a week.
When Mike was still deployed I remember one weekend that just sucked, and I mean SUCKED at work. 2 working cardiac arrests (meaning we did CPR, defibrillated, gave drugs, intubated, got pulses back and transported, the works) and 2 pretty severe trauma's. Those calls are fun really, and it's what I'm trained for, but it's draining. Mentally and physically, I was spent. I felt like I had just went 8 rounds with Tyson. Now imagine my boy overseas doing that days and days on end, non stop with no sleep and the people that are getting hurt and dying around you aren't people that you only just met because someone called 911 for help, they are your brothers that you live with. I can't even begin to imagine it.
Life is precious and so are the people that you have in it. When you think you have it bad, suck it up and stop feeling sorry for yourself. Treat other's like you would want to be treated. Mostly, don't be an asshole unless the person really deserves it, because you never know what's coming around the corner next for you.
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