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If you would like to participate in The Daily Post’s Weekly Photo Challenge:
http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/02/22/forward/
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Thanks for visiting!
*Written in response to The Green Study’s “Worst Job I Ever Had” contest. If you’d like to enter, just follow the link to her post. Thanks for reading!*
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I was eleven years old. I’ll give you a minute to picture an eleven-year old.
At 11, you are just a kid. So much to learn. So many mistakes to make. You still need someone to look after you.
But we needed the money.
So I placed an ad in the newspaper:
Summer Babysitter/Mother’s Helper: Responsible 11-year-old girl available to care for your child(ren). CPR-certified. 3 years experience. References. Light housekeeping/cooking if needed.
I received a number of calls. I’m not sure that all of the men who called actually had children. But that’s another story!
Anyway, I had been babysitting for my younger sister for years and had branched out to babysitting for friends, neighbors, friends of friends/neighbors since turning 8. Think about that for a minute. I have eight-year-olds. Two of them, in fact. And I cannot picture leaving them alone for 20 minutes. I cannot picture them cooking. Or cleaning. Or caring for other people’s children!
But I did all of these things at the tender age of 8. So, by 11, I was an old pro.
Of all the calls I received, the most appealing came from a woman who said she’d need me Saturdays and most weekdays and that I could start that Saturday.
Why was it the most appealing?
1.) I could walk to the house. We did not have a car, so proximity was important.
2.) She had a two-month-old son — and I loved babies.
So I said yes. And I walked there on Saturday morning, arriving early because I was a very responsible eleven-year-old.
But I was not prepared for what I would find or for what this job would be.
I had passed the house many times on the school bus. It was a weathered old white house in poor repair. The lawn was littered with bits and pieces from at least a few vehicles. And there, in the long gravel driveway, was a run-down old truck with a skull and crossbones bumper sticker on the back window and a pair of panties hanging on the rear-view mirror.
But I was not one to judge. I grew up quite poor. Owning an old white house and a run-down old pick-up truck (with or without the panties) would have been a dream come true for us.
When I knocked on the front door that first day, a tall, hairy guy motioned me inside. He looked me up and down and gave me a smile and a wink I had seen before. Then his wife swooped in, red lipstick-stained cigarette dangling from her mouth. She handed her infant to me with as much care as you’d expect from a football player tossing a football. “Here are the other two,” she said, pointing to Jimmy, age 7, and Cassie, age 4.
And with that, the man and woman left, promising to be back “later.”
In the months that ensued, “later” meant anywhere from 2 to 10 hours. I never knew. Sometimes the couple would leave and go to an unnamed place. Sometimes their bandmates would come and they would all go out to the old barn in the back to play while I looked after the kids all day. And sometimes it meant that the mother would leave me home with the children and the hairy man. And on those days, he often wore only a pair of boxers and said he enjoyed watching me bathe the kids. Yes, hairy guy was a weirdo!
And the kids, oh, the poor kids. I fell in love with 4-year-old Cassie and 8-week-old Joe. They were sweet and cuddly and needed to be nurtured.
And, to my dismay, 7-year-old Jimmy fell in love with me. I learned this when he took me back to the old weeping willow he called his treehouse and attempted to kiss and handcuff me to a tattered backseat his dad had dragged in there from his old car. Of course a discussion about boundaries ensued.
And yet I returned. All summer long. And on the days when their parents came home drunk and/or stoned, I stayed late without pay and walked home in the dark. Those kids needed me.
And I will never forget them — or the worst job I ever had.
I know I have been M.I.A. this week and that I’m barely squeaking this week’s Daily Post Weekly Photo Challenge entry in, but here is my submission for the challenge topic: Kiss.
Thanks so much for visiting. And if you’d like to participate in a Weekly Photo Challenge, just click on the links at the bottom of this page.
May your life be filled with kisses…
My Son & His New Friend
A Mom and Her Baby
My Beautiful Sister and Her New Husband on Their Wedding Day
http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/02/15/weekly-photo-challenge-kiss/
I thought I would take a minute to wish you all a very happy Valentine’s Day.
I was unable to eat and drink today because of a test I needed to fast for. So when H and my sons came to pick me up from the hospital at 4 this afternoon (and I was cleared to eat & drink again), I was both hungry and thrilled.
I had big plans for the evening with my two Valentines (my twin sons). But I was too tired to follow through. I could barely keep my head up at the dinner table. It wasn’t long before I needed to retreat to the coziness of the couch and my thick blanket and loyal dogs.
I thought my boys would be disappointed — they usually are when I need to lie down. But they amazed me by understanding my exhaustion. They thanked me for making their special Valentine cards (I stayed up all night last night crafting Valentines for them and for their teachers) and for the little gifts I made for them.
And then they brought me the gift they made for me. They found an unused box and filled it with 2 new rolls of Scotch tape, a giraffe-shaped soap dispenser, and some special things from around the house (seashells, bits of coral, a photo of a sea turtle). They then decorated sheets of copier paper and wrote “To Mom” and “Love, Us” on them. They wrapped the box in their creations and topped it with an old Christmas bow.
They were grinning from ear to ear when they presented me with their box. They were taking a rare reprieve from bickering with one another, so I knew this was important!
Struggling to keep my eyes open, and soaking wet and shivering from alternating hot flashes and night sweats that are really day sweats (thank you, radical hysterectomy and Tamoxifen!), I thought I was letting my kids down. But when they presented me with that special box, I knew I was wrong. They were happy to have me as their valentine, whatever my condition. And I realized how lucky I was.
Their squabbling soon resumed and we had to get the homework show on the road, but I still felt like a lucky girl.
Tonight I realized that I have two very special valentines.
I hope that you, too, have a special person/child/dog/cat/friend/goldfish in your life. Good night & warmest wishes, dear readers…
***Reblogging this post because I think it is full of terrific info.
I have been meaning to write a Lymphedema and Cellulitis post since I started this blog, but Denise beat me to it — and I think her post is GREAT, so I’m just going to reblog hers.
I think the section on cellulitis is especially important. I had my first run-in with cellulitis at the end of last may when we were on vacation & I had no out of state coverage. I didn’t know what it was — I thought it was a terrible and painful sunburn (that only appeared on my lymphedema arm (an arm that was fully covered and couldn’t possibly have gotten burned!)). And it did almost kill me. I had to seek emergency care on vacation — and when we got off the plane at home, I had to go straight to the emergency room at the hospital (where I remained for much of the next few weeks). It took multiple hospitalizations, a ton of antibiotics, and a wonderful infectious disease specialist to get it under control — even still, it was September before it was finally considered “controlled.” I just had it again a few weeks ago (on vacation!), but knew what I was looking at this time, so I immediately started on the emergency antibiotics I brought with me, and I came out of it unscathed this time.
Special thanks to Denise! You are doing everyone a GREAT service by posting about LE and especially cellulitis. I hope everyone who has had lymph nodes removed (or who loves someone who has had lymph node surgeries) takes the time to read this!
~L @ CancerInMyThirties
When the title of this Blog Post entered your Inbox, let’s face it, your heart did not go pitter patter with excitement. Please try to stick it out!!! You will learn something and I will attempt to give you a few laughs along the way! You and your Lymphatic System have something in common– misunderstood and under appreciated. There are 500 to 700 lymph nodes in the body. Who would think if you have one or a few of those removed, in my case 14, it could cause so much trouble?
My Lymphedema was under control until I picked up those 3 plastic bags of groceries with my impacted arm and then my POOF of Lymphedema came back with a vengeance. Now you cannot yell at me because admit it, you have done it and later regretted it even if you have no chance of Lymphedema. Who wants to…
View original post 1,328 more words
This week’s Daily Post Photo Challenge subject is: Home
http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/02/08/photo-challenge-home/
These images represent HOME for me… Thank you for taking the time to visit…
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Written in response to The Daily Post Challenge
Daily Prompt: Childhood Revisited
Chubby little fingers grip a wooden banister
He leads her toward a strange basement
She is scared
And for good reason
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They reach the bottom and he takes her aside
This is where it happens
Again
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Her young mind can’t wrap itself around this
And for good reason
No three-year-old should understand this
But she will one day
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He finishes
And leads her back upstairs
She does what she is told
She follows
He is her dad, after all
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He takes her to the pony rides on the way home
This will wash the dirty memories away
That’s what he thinks, at least
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But he is wrong
I will always have the dirty memories
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