Safe Haven Stuff

As of January 1, the Safe Haven law in Illinois was extended to 30 days, up from 7. Meaning a parent could go into a police or fire station, or a hospital, and give their baby up for adoption. Anonymously, if they choose (and they do)
Yesterday this happened. A six month old girl was left at a police station.
Now, the bottom line is that the parents kept the girl safe, even if they couldn't keep her. I won't judge them, no one knows the situations that led to this. I'm thankful they followed the spirit of the law, if not the letter of the law.
That said, I'm concerned that extending safe haven to 30 days looses the original intent. The point of the law was to allow a women who had hidden a pregnancy the option to give her baby up for adoption without anyone knowing she had been pregnant. It was to keep women from hurting, hiding or dumping their babies. But moving it up to 30 days gives this a very different meaning. When you've had a baby for 30 days, your family, friends, and neighbors know about it, so anonymity is kind of shot. Those women who have attempted to parent for 29 days and say that they can't do it need a different kind of help.
Parents need to know that there are agencies out there to help them. That if you truly want to proceed with adoption, you can do so at ANY time, and you don't need safe haven. If you want to keep your child but feel overwhelmed, there are places to turn for help. If you need a few days to sort yourself out, there is Maryville Crisis Nursery - or a number of other crisis nurseries - that will care for your child and point you in the right direction to get the help you need.

When I started working with Safe Haven, my opinion was that anyone should be able to relinquish a child at any time. I'd rather have a 2 year old left safely at a hospital than a 2 year old abused and kept at home. It's more complex than that, obviously. Some parents will try their hardest and simply feel they can't do it. Some will abuse or neglect a child before giving him or her up. Some will kill their children. Trying to write one law that reaches out to all of them is just too much to ask.

Deep Thoughts

So it's the end of the year, and most people reflect and stuff. Not I! No time for that.
I've noticed something about myself (and believe me when I say my psychotherapy very rarely turns inward) ... do you know that poem with the line the best laid plans of mouse and man often go awry? Or something like that. Anyway, I'm not the man, who constantly makes big, grand plans. I'm the mouse. I live in the here and now. I take stuff as it comes and make the best I can with it. I don't spend time being angry, or mourning losses. Instead, picking up and dusting off and moving forward. In a way, it leaves me little time to stress out about things. I like that. Plus I have the attention span of a gnat.

Never one to go overboard on NYE, this year seems like it will be particularly tame. It's 4pm and I'm so tired I could nap on my desk right now. Hubs is making dinner, kids are waiting to have a zombie movie fest tonight. Me? I'm looking forward to another year being a mom, wife, student and friend.

Caution: Construction Zone

Once again, my thanks to Midwest Mommy for helping crop my dang header... if any of you saw it last night or this morning, it took up 3/4 of my page!!!
You know, I'd like to say I'm just not computer literate enough to do this crafty stuff, but the bottom line is I don't have the patience. I get so frustrated with it!
Now to work on my background and side bars..... oh, the fun!

Wordless Wednesday

More Bellyisms

Saturday night, the Belly got sick. Very sick. He spent hours throwing up, and trying to sleep.
At around midnight, he woke up, puked, then told me he'd almost been hit in the eye with a baseball.
????
After clean up, he explained a little more. He was dreaming that he was at bat, and the ball was coming right for his eye. Then he lowered his head, and it bounced off his hat instead.
"Oh, so you were a baseball player? That sounds exciting!"
He smiled, as he was drifting off already, and he said, "Yeah, I was a CUBS player."

:)

Inventory

This morning I found one of my Converse gym shoes in the dog's crate. So on my search for the *other* shoe, I decided to look under the dog's bed. Here's what I found:

The remains of a pillow (synthetic, thank goodness)
2 pair of my underwear (wtf?!)
an empty Chef Boyardee ravioli can
2, count 'em, TWO packages of hot dog buns

Hubs thinks Ilio may be a hoarder. If he was a person, he'd probably have newspapers and old magazines piled up to the ceiling.

Dear Santa

Thank you Dawn, for this idea :)

Dear Santa,
Um, could you bring me a DSi? And could you bring me, um, all the stuff that I asked for? You know, all the stuff on TV? And the stuff at Target, too? That's my favorite store, Target.
And um, could you make D do his homework so he can play video games with me again? I get stuck when I have to play the song of time on the Legend of Zelda, and my mom says he can't help me because he can't play any games until he does all his homework.
Love,
Isaiah M.

Dear Santa this is Ilio I'm the big dog and I really want cheese and those green fuzzy balls and can you make my people stay home all the time to play because I get bored when they're gone and then I chew on stuff and then they get mad but I only chew stuff I can reach well I can reach a lot of stuff because I'm big but they get mad and they say to me Bad Dog! and that makes me sad so can you bring stuff for me?
Good Santa!

Dear Fat Man,
Bring me a muzzle for this big dog. And some chew sticks.
Eva - the original family dog

Dear Santa,
Can you please do something to make the kids believe just a little longer? Oh, and it would be nice if you could clone my wife so that we may actually see her once in a while. You know, if it's not too much to ask.
Thanks, bro,
Hubs

Dear Santa,
I'd like to share a few things with you... oh hell, I don't have time. Have a good night, stay warm, don't forget to bring poop bags for the reindeer, don't eat too many cookies, and tell Mrs. Clause I said hello.
The Mom