I SO did not see that coming!

Wow, John McCain picks a female small town mayor to be his VP! Holy Shit, what a brilliant move!
As stated, I am with Obama. However I do not think he will win.
McCain's choice of Palin for a running mate completely undercuts the domination Obama has with the opportunity to make history. The media has made a constant theme out of the chance to be "the first to.....". Whether with Hillary or Barack, the first woman candidate or the first black (although half lily white) candidate. The momentum in the campaign has swirled around this fact as part of its foundation.
Well Mr McCain undercut "the first to" with his own first and what a winner (for him). She is a member of the NRA? She hunts? In ALASKA? Where she wants to drill up her own wildlife refuge!!!!
She has a wart, that will probably be drummed for the next few months, of firing someone for not firing someone she didn't like. So what. Who among us would not want to fire our own ex-brother in-law.
What I am getting annoyed with is the praise for giving birth to a baby with Downs instead of aborting. Since she is anti-choice, the big deal is that she and her husband found out the baby would have Downs and decided to continue the pregnancy. Listen, there are far worse things than Downs Syndrome. God forbid that baby turned up with Autism, he would not be covered by health insurance. That's right, most health insurance companies will NOT cover medical treatment associated with an Autism Spectrum Disorder. There is far worse than ASD for that matter. But I need to stop this tangent.
McCain has offered up his very own opportunity to make history by electing a ticket with a woman for VP on it. Smart strategy.
Although I will be interested to see how he plans to overcome her lack of experience, when he has used the tact of nailing Obama on lack of experience as a strong piece of his campaign.

I want to be the first to say it.... Chelsea Clinton for President

Now there is a woman with her stuff together! What class! And sophistication! She looks as unflappable as both of her parents. I don't know exactly how old she is, but after McCain has his 8 year run she should be ready. Because as open minded as people claim to be, I think most people in this country still feel anxiety at the thought of a black man running things. Even a half-white black man.
Having said that, I don't think this country is ready for a woman either. Again, the lingering concerns, what if she gets PMS blah blah blah.
I think Hillary would have been amazing and I will vote for Obama, but I think we will be stuck with the old white guy anyway. He is about the most vanilla republican they could put up. Even I respect him, and I used to live in Arizona under his conservative rule.
So, in 4 more years, possibly 8, I would like to see Chelsea Clinton run for president.

Remember the "Roseanne" show?

For me, Roseanne went miles and miles trailblazing how MY family was. My parents, genuine people that worked hard, did not take the time to quietly speak to me or my sister of our mistakes and better choices. No, they came home from work screaming. Screaming if the dishes were not done. Screaming if the toilet paper roll had not been replaced. Screaming for something they made up if they couldn't find anything wrong in the house. My dad worked long hard dirty hours at a job he hated. He always worked overtime, always. When there was a strike, he worked on, having 4 children to support. This did not go over well and he found his rig one day with the engine smashed. And he still worked on.
I think I laughed myself into tears the first time I saw a Roseanne show. I remember seeing her on Carson doing stand up and she was hysterical. There is one particular episode scene, where the phone rings for Becky and Roseanne answers it. Becky wants to know who it is and what does she want. Roseanne throws the phone on the floor and says "she wants you to pick up the phone!" I am grinning just remembering it. Unfortunately, I was Becky. I had that same snotty attitude. Luckily I got out to college and the world outside my Chicago suburb expanded with new and interesting things (did you know that not all highways have lights?).
I do miss that show. Anymore, families on tv have cutesy little kids that do cutesy little things and happy happy endings. The wives are shrill and the husbands with cool jobs are bumbling around the house. Roseanne was REAL and it was brilliant.

So, Bribe and Threaten Parenting: what it is and how to do it

To put it simply, Bribe and Threaten parenting is a well- researched time tested technique for remediating the maladaptive and pre-criminal behaviors of children. It has been used by strung out and exhausted parents since the start of parenting. Here is an example as I posted on ManicMommies.com
"If you 2 pilgrims don't quit hitting each other with your stick dolls I am going to pull over this wagon and you can get out and walk. And pick up the horse poop while you're out there".
As previously mentioned, while the technique has been around forever, I officially titled it as 'Bribe and Threaten Parenting' last summer. My sister was having her second baby baptized at a Greek church in Chicago. For us, the event required 2 days of travel from northern Wisconsin to southern Wisconsin to stay with grandparents then to Chicago for the day and back, then back home the next day. Traveled with a toddler lately? How about 2 of 'em? Oh, and give one of them a good attack of some reactive attachment disorder. Are you thinking what I think you are thinking? That this sounds like a famous circle of hell? The really firey agonizing tortuous circle? You got it.
Sound travels in church. In this particular church the acoustics are fabulous if you are in the choir. If you are 2 children trying to be as disruptive as possible, sound positively echoes!
At its most basic, BAT parenting goes like this:
If you do this good thing you will get a treat. IF you do this bad thing you will get a punishment. (YES! I used the word punishment! and I meant it! Come and get me Parent magazine!!!). Good is delivered with a smile, bad is hissed through the teeth for best results.
After 2 hours in the car we arrive at the church. Genea has cried, whined, nagged and disrupted us all for the whole trip. It feels like someone is tap-dancing on my last nerve. But, I am armed with BAT philosophy. We get to our pew and sit. For like, 3 maybe 4 seconds. Commence whining. I clench my teeth and threaten them with the basement. Recommence whining. I beg them to shut up, flashing my cracker stash. I have bought us 2 more minutes. More whining, getting up, trying to make a run for it. I give out sips of juice for quieting down. Mind you all, the ceremony has not even started yet. Hiss- knock it off or we are going to sit in the basement. Got me 2 more minutes. It occurs to me that some of these ummm, more devout people may think it inappropriate to have a meal in here. (the joke is on them, they have no idea how inapproprite we can be!)Ceremony begins. I was here for the first nephew being baptised and I recall clearly how long it was. Around 17 hours. Look at my beautiful children who have decided to take advantage of the calm and quiet to really fire it up.
Forget it. Into the basement with us.
I consider this to be a successful implemetation of BAT techniques. We lasted in the church for at least 5 minutes into the ceremony, if not longer!

Bribe and Threaten Parenting

I "invented" this last summer when taking a 2 year old and a pissed off 4 year old on a 3 hour drive to Chicago going to church for my nephews baptism. I have been throwing the phrase around a lot lately and so I decided if it becomes a famous technique I want to be on the record as the originator. More Later.

The Perfect Storm

I am spending a lot of time with my children these days and with Genea I am starting to realize that what I have been telling the professionals from the beginning is accurate. She is sad. And her sad is so much bigger than she can handle. As we know, she had many special needs when she arrived in this house. Really looking back I wonder how we survived it. I have heard that expression so many times and so as a cliche it is a well watered down one but here I sit, still living. Unbelievable.
She has these tantrums. And no kidding, I have never seen anything like this child pitching a whopper. She goes from zero to 80 miles an hour in mere seconds and over the most minor thing. First the face widens and all of her features go red and open. Her whole face turns pink and blotchy. Her lower lip turns inside out. In those same few seconds the combination of tears, snot and saliva combine into long strings of mucous. Within a few more seconds it begins to pool on the floor. Seriously. It pools on the floor! She fights to catch her breath because she needs to inhale to her full lung capacity in order that the torturously extreme scream/cry can come out. And when it does it goes on and on and on. Until you are ready to stuff a mattress into your ears. It is shocking to see this little person come out with all that noise.
We have an amazing child psychiatrist who desperately adores Genea. He knew her from her time with the last adoptive family and so he sees the difference. So I dont know if I am just not getting the point across in my descriptions because here I am the Mommy and not a clinician. Most recently we tried ritalin to see if some of her problem is related to ADD and it seems to have done nothing for her at all. In fact even at a higher dose there was no change in her behavior hyper or otherwise. We have looked at bipolar amongst others and I am finding myself going back to my first general impression after having her full time for about a month. This child has an overwhelming depression. She is sad and she is anxious. We have taught her what her feelings are and how to identify them accurately and this is what she says. She feels sad and worried and sometimes nervous. What I see as a person looking at the outside is her floundering. She is weepy and easily frustrated and she cannot manage even a minor change in her expectations. When she is like this and I ask her what is wrong she will almost always say something obscure and unbelieveable is what is bothering her. Like, I am worried about the leaves being green on the trees. People want to take that and reassure her the tree will be fine but I see that as her trying to make sense of feelings that have no tangible origin. Like she needs something or anything to hang these emotions on to.
These are my thoughts today.

Happy Day Yay!

Happy new computer day to me! We finally broke down the old one to buy a new. WOw, technology goes fast these days. Our old computer is only 5 years old but so desperately out of date now it is like churning butter must have been in the olden days. According to my tech-o-geek husband it was too bogged down with start up stuff to move pages. Whatever! Hopefully now I can get this blog moving.
We have had a busy few weeks. My grandmother and her husband had a party in Chicago and we left the girls at my moms for a few days so we could come home and prepare the house for my MIL and GIL to come for a visit. They left yesterday and we are trying to get back to the chaos and drama and fits and tantrums that is our normal.
SO- a lot of catching up to do. With everything happening, we suddenly had a recurrence of Genea's former family looking to absolve themselves. I most unkindly told them to keep their guilt and leave us alone. We are using all we have to get through every challenging day as it happens. There is never a break. And that is ok, however old problems are not welcome here.