It really is so amazing to me how life takes so many twist and turns in such a short amount of time.

This family is not laughing as much right now.  Let’s just say that we are all finding our place in the new year.  I hope that we find our place and start laughing again soon because I do miss the laughter in our home.

Little Adam is smiling up a storm and his sweet 11 week old presence helps bring us all into the present and reminds us of what really matters- right now, this moment and how we choose to live it.  What does Adam need?  What do we all need.

Love, food, to be held, cared for, made to feel special and valued.  Oh and maybe a bath every now and then.  Don’t worry he got one tonight.  I hope to come back to the abandoned blog soon….and hope I still have a presence in the blog world after my unintended absence.

Until then take care of yourselves, your the only one you got!

Wet Ones® recognizes that it’s product is great for cleaning up all of our sticky situations and is hosting a contest asking mom’s to share there stories and advice on how to clean em” up.  You can enter the contest by following this link to their facebook page your Sticky Situation there is even a chance to win some great prizes including an ipad mini and six flags tickets.   Act fast because the contest ends December 28th!  I know we all have something to share and laugh about (in retrospect).

Here’s a bit of my entry:  A Sticky Good Time 

One of the places my family likes to travel to is Maine.  It is not so far away, but always feels like we are a world away from home.  On one of our trips we decided to let Tommy eat a lollipop in the car on our way to the zoo.  He was so quiet and happy in the back seat that we enjoyed the scenic ride by the ocean.

Arriving at the zoo I looked back to see quite a happy, messy little boy!  Lollipop had made his way onto his hands, hair, clothes, oh and face.  Begging me to question,

“did you eat the lollipop or use it as a marker?”

Lesson learned. 1) ALWAYS bring a change of clothes- you don’t want to have to head home or even worse buy clothes everywhere you go.  2) keep a SUPPLY of tissues, Wet Ones®, and baby wipes/an extra diaper in a bag in the car.  Look at me I’ve been a mom for 3 1/2 years and I sound like a pro- it just takes a few sticky situations to teach you some valuable tricks.

Disclaimer: I participated in a campaign on behalf of Mom Central Consulting for Wet Ones. I received a promotional item to thank me for participating.

I looked around at all the innocent joyous children happy and smiling, and instead of making me sad, like I thought it would, it made me smile.

The horrific events that took place at Sandy Hook School in Newtown, Conn. have made many parents afraid this week, afraid of a copy cat crime…afraid of loosing our own.  Everyone is more aware, hyper aware that bad things happen and that someone can take away what we love most.

I hope that the murders at Sandy Hook School make all of us appreciate what we have and give us a little more patience with our children- remembering that they are just children and are learning from our example everyday.  I hope that we can treat children that are different with a little more respect and try our best to meet their unique and individual needs.

I don’t believe that Adam Lanza woke up that morning and snapped.  I believe as a social worker that  messages inside his head were not quite right for a long time…could we trace it back even to when he was in elementary school? Maybe we can- maybe this child needed to be placed in a special education classroom with more individual attention- or maybe he needed counseling and careful monitoring of his medications.  Perhaps his mother, father, and/or brother could have benefited from counseling and/or a support group for reacting to his needs.  A better understanding of him, more supportive services for his family, less stigma for his mental illness, more talking and less keeping his secret within the home could have changed everything.

I have read a lot of articles since Friday blaming guns, blaming the mother… to blame seems natural and soothes us a little bit- there has to be someone to blame- a criminal in all this.  It is much easier to blame something, than to look at this event as an unfortunate outcome of an unstable man who did something horrible- why did he choose to take his inner rage out on innocent children?  We might never know.

What can we do now? One thing we can do is look at our children and be honest and true .. not take the easy way out and pretend that they are perfect and all is ok, if it is not.

do they need to be on medication?  do they need to see a therapist- possibly for the rest of their life? do they need to have constant supervision?  do they need a special after school program? Do I as a parent need support? Do we as a family need to secure weapons in our home or not have them at all?  do we as a community need to advocate for more funding for mental health services, grants for big brother/mentor programs, job training and employee assistance programs…

I am Tommy and Adam’s mother and I promise to love them.  I also promise, as I hope more parents will do: to treat them as individuals and be honest if they need help mentally.  If I can’t provide that help I will do my best to advocate and push for what they need from their schools, the state, the feds- whatever it takes.

My heart goes out to the families and all those affected by the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School and the community of Newtown, Conn.   I am so sorry for your loss and so saddened for you that you have to endure this pain.  I have cried every day and pray that there will be some positive changes after this horrible event.