the blog of a disabled mother who likes to game, and "get in the pit"
He loves this plush so much — it was a gift from a friend — that he takes it everywhere with him, and sometimes he does things like this. And yes, he gave consent for me to take this picture. He doesn’t mind that it is on my blog. If he had his way, I would be mentioning him a lot more on my blog… maybe I should…
In theory, I have one child who could have and manage his own Facebook account or Twitter account. He’s fourteen, so he’s old enough to. But I don’t feel comfortable allowing him to use a website that requires the use of his full name, and I don’t feel like he’s at a point where he could use any of these sites, would want to, or would get the same meaning out of them that we do. I mean, I could help him manage something… but I’m not sure about that, because if he weren’t enjoying it and wanting to do it, what would the point be? And in a way, it’s kind of ironic. Kids that he has grown up with have their own social networking accounts and enjoyably use them. And here I am, not even using his real name when I make public posts about him. I could if I wanted, but I don’t feel comfortable doing so given real-life (real life? how do you parse that?) circumstances, so here we are. Also, ironically the child in the picture isn’t the child that I’m writing about. He is too young to have social networking accounts of his own. I’m content to allow him to explore on YouTube and YouTube Kids.
Plus, I wouldn’t want to deal with the idea of having to help him navigate online conversations. Not yet.
So here we are. I feel old writing this entry out and I’m only thirty-five years old (my oldest son is fourteen).
Since the renewal for my medical insurance has come due for the second time this year, I anticipate having to continue to fight the state over leaving my children’s child support orders in non-enforcement. Normally this is a requirement for the kind of medical insurance that I have, but if one can prove to the state that enforcement efforts could cause some kind of harm to come to parent or child(ren), the requirement for enforcement can be waived with what is called a good cause waiver. I have pursued and kept these waivers for as long as I have had medical insurance under the state, although I was not made aware that Bub’s case qualified for one until 2014. Then came earlier this year when I had to fight for both of these waivers to be put back onto their cases because they were mysteriously “lost”, and I had to contact a lawyer in preparation to sue the state to make sure that Bub’s good cause waiver stayed on his case. Funny how all of that worked though — as soon as HHSC and the OAG were informed that I had begun to consult with a lawyer, both cases had good cause waivers applied to them that have stayed to this day. I don’t screw around with this.
As much as I hate reliving the incidents — the trauma — that causes these waivers to need to be sought, I will continue to do so again and again to protect both of the boys and keep us safe for obvious reasons.