Of course!

"Immy? Why do you need to be naked to go pee?"

"Because I want to be a princess!"

Pain and comfort

So there is a couple in T.O. whose daughter is in pretty rough shape. She has some kind of rare disorder that won't allow her brain to communicate with her body. She's been on life support and earlier this week the decision was made to stop the machine that was breathing for her. She then began breathing on her own and, seeing as there are only 500 known people in the world living with this disorder, it's pretty amazing.

The thing is the parents of this little girl have been taking all kinds of flak because they stated publicly that they want their daughter's organs to be used to help save another child (this was before she had started breathing on her own when it was assumed she would die without the life support). They've been told by various people that they should just keep their mouths shut and let their daughter die with dignity. Ethics professors are questioning their motives without actually questioning the parents directly. Insinuating, to a degree, that these parents are using their daughter's plight to gain public notoriety.

Here's the position I take on it. ( I'm just as qualified as any other person to comment on this because: a) I have kids and b) I've never been in that situation like probably 90% of the people telling them they aren't dealing with it properly.) How these people choose or need to deal with the pain of having a child in this condition is their business. If they take comfort in telling their story, let them. Maybe they need to get this out because the pain is just so great they need to tell as many people as possible to divide the pain by the number of people being told. Maybe they want people to know about organ donation. Maybe they want everyone to know that their daughter exists and, though she's likely going to die, she matters. I don't know. I have chosen not to pay too much attention because I have difficulty dealing with the idea of a child dying. They HAVE to deal with the idea.

I think they need to be cut some fuckin' slack!

Alien Fossil: Cave Drawing

Iron Monkey

"Your gonna do WHAT?"

So that's the main reaction I get when I tell people the following news: My wife and I are thinking about becoming foster parents. Right now we're starting to do some research to see how it all works or how one gets qualified to be a foster parent.

People tend to think we're crazy. "You've got three already" or "you gotta be careful" or "why would you take care of someone else's kid?" (I'm serious about that last one too! That's not exactly what he said but that's the jist of the conversation!) The bottom line is my wife and I want to help and we think we could give a solid foundation to a kid who needs it. And the government PAYS foster parents, so it's not "detracting" anything from my biological children. It's like homecare in the healthcare system. It's way cheaper to pay to have someone stay in their home (when appropriate) than to keep them in an institution. The government actually saves money paying foster parents to care for wards of the state, and the kids have, I would argue, a much better chance at something approaching a normal childhood.

Oh and we are still planning to have a fourth biological child too.

"You have how many kids? You want more? You need to pull out!!"

"Three. Yes. I do pull out...I'm here aren't I?"

I guess I just need to stop sharing information with the knuckle draggers at work!