Fire Trucks, Ambulances and Police, Oh My!

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I am the winner of the Powerball ticket in Arizona....NOT!  LOL!  It was wishful thinking while I could do it though.  What I could have done with the money.  The winner's share is something like 136 MILLION dollars.  It would have been SO nice to have the money.  I would have left my work in a heartbeat.  I miss my children SO bad.  I would have gone back home to be with them.  After I paid the rent for the rest of the lease where I am at and give Bailey and her grandfather the house to live in rent free for that time.  I would have given one million to Bailey in a trust.  She could get the interest from the trust each year.  Her grandfather I would have bought him another car and given him 500,000 to get started with what he would like to do.  My children are easy.  I would have set up a trust for Jerrin.  He is not working currently and my grand-baby is on the way. I would have set up a 5 million dollar trust for him where he got the interest.  I would have bought the $60,000 home they (Jerrin and his fiance) were wanting and given them 100,000 to renovate and redecorate it.  Caitlin I would have set up a 5 million dollar trust also. She could have the interest as spending money.  I would pay for any college she could get accepted in.  Currently she is in college and I think she would stay there but I would offer to pay the entire bill.  I know that would take a HUGE worry off her head.  So that would be about 12 million or so.

Next I would have gone to Las Vegas.  I would have gone back to where I consider home.  I would have bought a 5 to 10 million dollar home.  I would not want the size of the house as much as the land.  I want LOTS of space for the kids to roam and play.  That is SO much money I have no idea what kind of house that would even buy in Vegas.  I would think the 5 million dollar house would cover all I need with the space and a pool (for fun and therapy).  I would also want to get some sort of small house near my parents in Alabama so we had a place to stay when we went to visit.  I would pay off my parent's home.  I would also offer my grandmother a place to stay anywhere she wished.  She is all most 80 and it would be nice to give her somewhere that is nice AND where she wants to live.  I would give my in-laws money to pay them back form all their help and I would even give John some money so he could pay off his bills and buy a car.  I would set up a trust for Margaret, James and Joseph.  Margaret and James I would set up with 10 million and Joseph with 20 million.  I would be able to write an advance directive for Joseph (and Margaret too for right now) to make sure they will be able to be looked after and have a nice life after I am gone.  I would save 30 million and pay for all the things I want to do for me and the children (care givers, doctors, therapy, other medical and anything else they need).  That is 70 million. Plus the 12 million from earlier and I still have about FIFTY MILLION left to spend!!!  It would be SO great to help out all the nice people who have helped me along the way and then to be able to give to others. I know I would give money to all my friends.  They are all, sadly, as broke as I am.  It would be nice to pay off their homes, buy them equipment they need for their children or do one of the many other things I know they need.  I would LOVE to help people in a thoughtful and personal way.  I could go back and do one of my FAVORITE things in the world to do... random acts of kindness to people who have NO idea it is coming.

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Now that the daydream is over...back to reality.  LOL!!!  I took today off from work because Chris (a worker from the Department of Economic Security, Division of Developmental Disabilities (DDD), Children's Unit) told me it would take ALL day to go over the information he needed for all three children.  Bailey had a doctor's appointment scheduled for the day .  I took the entire day off.  I missed a HUGE meeting that I had to ask my boss' boss to attend for me.  Then I had another meeting I was missing that I had to ask my boss to please take minutes for me plus I had a paper I needed to review.  Sigh!  Bailey later informs me that she cannot make her appointment since she did not call early enough to arrange a ride.  So she cancels her appointment. Sigh!  I could have done the DDD appointment some other day but it was too late now.  The guy from the DDD came over this morning.  He was here from 8:30am until right at noon.  During our interview we discussed a lot of topics.  I kept telling him over and over again how the children have LOTS of safety issues.  I mentioned I put a have a lock on the children's door.  I said I used to use a baby gate but James got so big he could easily pull down the baby gate so I had to put a lock on the door.  The guy had this look on his face and I said I had a problem with them wandering off so I had to make sure they could not do that at night while I might be sleeping.  Not once did he ask any questions or wanted to see their room.  I had to make some copies of things for the DDD worker so I went into Bailey's room to ask if her printer had paper in it.  When I went in she told me she had been having a migraine today and she was about to have a seizure.  She asked I wait a moment and look in on her.  I said ok.  I stayed and watched the seizure.  It was about a minute long and pretty mild.  She seemed to be coming back around and I said I would be back in a second.  I left the room to check on the copies I was making and went back after I heard a noise in Bailey's bedroom.  I walk back in and she is in another seizure.  I stayed a watched over her.  She was gasping and gagging because her breathing was interrupted.  This one last all most three minutes.  I go back out and tell the guy from the DDD his copies were ready and he needed to go.  I was going to call an ambulance since Bailey was having seizures.

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He left and as I went back Bailey came walking out of her room.  I asked her if she is ok.  She said she was confused.  I told her she was ok but she had two seizures in about five minutes.  She lays down on a pallet in the living room.  I asked where her meds are and she tells me so I get them.  When I come back into the room I was there for just a few seconds and she had another seizure with the kids there.  James asked what was happening.  I said Bailey was sick and mommy was going to call 911.  I called 911 and the kids were going nuts.  They knew the police or someone was going to come over.  As I am on the phone with 911 they put me through to the Gilbert Fire Department.  I mention fire department the kids run around making fire truck noises.

I hang up with the fire department.  They were there in five minutes.  By then Bailey was starting to come around a little.  The firemen (yes, they were cute!) were asking her a lot of questions and helped load her into an ambulance that took her to the hospital.  James was VERY concerned for Bailey.  He kept telling me we had to go and get her.  I said we had to wait until she called and then we would get her. At three-ish in the afternoon Bailey called and asked if I would take her over to the local urgent care so she could get pain medicine to stop the migraine.  I said sure.  Earlier in the week Bailey and the children made letters to Santa.  I said I wanted to go to the post office and send off the letters to Santa and then I would stop and get her something to drink before taking her to urgent care.  She said ok.

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I went to pick her up from the hospital.  We got to the post office and I went in with James and Margaret.  Bailey and a sleeping Joseph waiting in the car.  Another kid was in the post office and the mom even thanked me for bringing them. LOL  They all played.  She should have been thankful though since she was NOT paying attention to her son and I stopped him bring having his fingers pinched in a door and stop him from spitting in the floor. Oh my!  LOL  It took 40 minutes waiting to send the letters to Santa.  I sent them to North Pole, Alaska. (Follow the link to see how) I have never done this before but it seems like it will be fun!

After getting something to drink I took Bailey to Urgent Care.  She wanted to take James with her for company.  Huh?  Really?  Okay!  LOL  James is really good on his own so I figured he would behave for her. Joseph, Margaret and I went home.  I let them play outside and I tried to get some things picked up.  As I am starting to write in the blog Bill arrives home.  After he comes home I call Bailey to check up on her and to try and give her grandfather information.  He has me talk to him for a bit about making meals.  He said he was about to be paid and he was going to buy groceries.  He was then going to cook.  He was asking what I like.  To be honest I HIGHLY doubt there is anything they would eat that I would not eat too.  It would be me and the children who would eat "weird" stuff like Indian food. LOL   I LOVE all sorts of things and so do the children.  The biggest things we talked about was buying food specifically for meals and getting fresh fruits and vegetables.

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I leave again.  Bill volunteers to watch Margaret and Joseph while I go and get Bailey and James.  I pick them up from the urgent care and then take them to the pharmacy.  At the pharmacy Bailey gets her pain medicine.  I take us back home.  I was about 7:40pm when we got back.  As I come in Bill said the Gilbert police had stopped by.  I asked why.  Bill said, the policeman said,  he was responding to a call from child protective services. What???   Bill said the office mentioned the call said the children were being locked in their room.  The way the officer made it sound was that we were keeping the kids locked in the room all day.  The officer said he wanted to come inside and look.  Bill said it was not a problem.  He went and made sure he put the baby gates up and took the officer to their room.  He showed the officer the chain lock.  Bill explained that the children were disabled and to keep them safe at night we lock them in their room.  The chain lock on the door allows them to open it and yell for help in the morning.  We let them out. They are not imprisoned in the room in any way.  The officer look in the room and saw the Christmas lights I had put up, their beds and toys in the room.  He saw the lock on the bedroom door and front door.  He said he completely understood why the lock was there and he had no idea why he was called out.  He said he would write in up what he saw in his report to Child Protective Services and let them know the children were fine.

I am rather upset with my case worker, Chris, from the DDD.  I had explained to him WHY I did that. I had said James could pull down a baby gate.  I said OVER AND OVER again how they were a danger.  They had issues with safety and wandering.  OMG!  So now I am thinking about getting a copy of the report if I can.  I want to know what was said.  Then I think I may file a complaint.  At the very least I will be switching case workers! Anyone have any advice here?  I have to say I am feeling rather betrayed.  Plus if anyone else have any ideas on keeping them safe that is better than the chain locks I would be happy to hear the ideas!

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So that was my day.  It is now near midnight and I need to go to bed to get up at 4am tomorrow.  I have to mention John though.  It just would not be a blog post without saying something.  Sigh!  I recently was talking to John and he said his father called and asked him if he was planning to see the kids for Christmas.  The children will be turning FIVE on December 13th and then Christmas.  John was not planning to be here! In John's defense his mother has been fighting aggressive breast cancer for a while now.  She just finished treatment and (from my understanding) she is doing okay (I would not say well).  John's father offers to help him see the children or go home and see his parents and family for a week.  John decides to head back home.  On one hand I understand his decision.  On the other hand I am angry.  I know his mom has been VERY sick but she is also an adult.  The children on the other hand do not understand what is going on.  James is a HUGE daddy's boy.  He calls John basically EVERYDAY even though John often does not talk to him long (battery dying, holiday party and classes).  James cries at least twice a week wanting his daddy. He is CONSTANTLY asking me... where is daddy, is daddy coming, daddy is coming to Phoenix, we are going to Vegas, can we move to Vegas and other variations. When I say no, James cries. John has NO plans to see the children.  I told him I was going to try and get us up there at the end of January.  It is the soonest I can have enough money to try and rent a car.  There is NO way I would rely on my van at the moment to make it there. Even tonight James was telling me that John would be coming to Phoenix tomorrow.  I had to correct him again.  He was sad but I said I would do what I could to take him there in January.  He thinks that is next week but there is no way for me to explain the time issue to him.

John whines to me about not having enough money to come and see them but he has enough time to nap, workout, have no children, only one job and no room mates.  So of course he could not have the time to do anything to earn any extra money to come and see them.  Heck, a room mate does not even involve a lot of effort on his part and would save him at LEAST $300 a month!  Got to leave that room open though for the children (who may be there for two months during the summer...what about them staying in HIS room?) UGH!  I am sure part of the reason I am frustrated is that I have little to no time to get what *I* need done for me OR the children!  I am tired!  Can I get some respite now?

Joseph taking the meaning of stocking literally!