Amazing Moms: Nursing Mothers of Marquette, Mich.

I was writing in my intro about the amazing Olivia Grace waking me with her early (5 month's of age) talking by calling out to me on Saturday mornings... the only day I got to sleep in and hence, the only day I did not have to wake her as a single mom on my way to day care and then to school. But it gave me only 500 words, and the story ends with me breast-feeding a colleagues adopted child, so this is the perfect place to finish it, if you'll be kind enough to indulge me in this wonderful memory of a time now almost 14 years ago (years that for her have probably inched by, but for me have been as rapid as tax time rolls around each year... inconceivable that I have done so 13 times in her young life ALREADY!!! And that there are only 5 or 6 more that I get to include her in MINE! As a disabled single mom living with MS, that is particularly frightening as she is about 1/3 of my income and had I been a smarter PhD-trained smart gal, I would have been SAVING that 1/3 for the past 10 years that I have been disabled. WHY this has only occurred to me THIS year, I guess we can blame on the MS itself. Yeah! That's why I never thought to do so. That MUST be it. Geez, I really need to find a husband or write my first best-seller. Thus far the only book I have published is selling like pet rocks in the year 2010 on my website, addictionovercome(dot)com though it is SUCH an important topic for all of us with children. Keeping them off of drugs, written by someone academically trained to know all about addiction in one of my masters programs in Counseling, and one-year of road testing cocaine myself at the tail end of my PhD program at Penn that makes me KNOW to my bone marrow that when meth and crack users tell you that trying it ONCE is automatic addict, they speak the truth. I am working up the proposal to book two, which my group at the very first national writers conference I attended chose by vote as the most interesting title and then helped me work through for 3 days as a full-out proposal almost publisher-ready.... I just need to sit and finish it and send it. It is to be called Not MY Child: the Myth of the Drug-Free Home.

So, anyway... here is the rest of Olivia the talking baby:

. Not one step of practice until in her mind she knew she could do it right. She would call to me in the mornings from her crib down the hall, "Mama, it's morning here in my room. Is it morning in your room yet?" I would say, "Not quite. Give it about five or ten more minutes and it might be light in here." A few moments would pass... "Mama? I don't have a clock in my room." I would remind her, "Olivia, do you know how to tell time?" "Oh, not yet. I guess that is a problem. Has it been five minutes yet?" I knew it was hopeless. She was literally 10 months at this point... I would feel my way down the hall and she was standing there, holding onto the crib railing, just beaming at me, "Good morning Mama. You still look tired. Would you like to nurse me in your bed and maybe fall back to sleep a little while because I think this is Saturday? I'll be really quiet and just sing to you after I'm done eating... or is it drinking? That's funny, isn't it?" So I would change her heavy wet diaper.. proving it was drinking at least in part, but she was also eating real foods too, and the nursing was just AM and bedtime by then and would be until 18 months because it was wonderful time for us and fabulous for her health (and I was pumping for a friend who'd adopted a scrawny little colicky baby who was allergic to EVERYTHING they tried until I offered and they JUMPED at the chance to have me try and pump milk for their baby... he and I taught together. So, tomboy me grew up to be Bessie the cow who had enough milk to have fed those triplets if I'd had them. But, Olivia weighed in at over 9 lbs, so I think they would have, at some point in these past 14 years, have killed me. I had also been a long distance runner for about 30 years... so I was not exactly built for delivering babies and her head was stuck. We had to do an emergency C-section 3 weeks early and still it took the drs 6+ minutes to dislodge her head from my left pelvic bone. Also, go online to my non-profit that Olivia pours her soul into helping me with as she literally is the answer to my prayer in the 11th hour of what would have been the end of my life at age 33..."God, if you can still hear me, just give me a reason to live. I don't even care what it is." I know, beyond all doubt, that he heard, and in his brilliant if myopic answer, he gave me Olivia... pure Grace that I did not deserve but God saw fit to give her to me anyway. And it worked! I loved someone more than me...I cared for someone more than I'd ever cared for another human on the planet. I remembered how to behave like a normal human being who goes to bed and sleeps at night and eats regular meals and goes to work and teaches all day, and sometimes all evening and weekend workshops at the university for the masters program I helped to design. All that hard work, all that education and my life was empty until Olivia filled it with laughter and joy and miracles each day. She still does... her music is still as loud as it was on Barney afternoons, it's just the Jonas Brothers and Lady GaGa now. She still wants to sleep with me sometimes. Anyway, she has a heart of gold and if I didn't stop her, she would give away everything she owns to friends who like or want or need it. She is generous to a fault. We could sure use your support at addictionovercome(dot)com

In a nutshell, we bring Christmas or Hannukah (sp) to the children of addicts. We start at Thanksgiving with a turkey and all the trimmings and pies and as Olivia is helping the family set that up and all the while taking inventory in her flawless memory of what is in the kitchen and fridge/pantry/cupboards, I am sitting with the kids and teens in the living room, or what passes for one with my 3 lists for each of them: What do I want? What do I need? and What I would like to get for each member of my family. I have to help them through this, as these are jaded kids, big time. They have been promised things throughout their short lives and they know that a promise means nothing. A piece of paper is a step up, but still, they don't trust that I'll ever be back, and certainly not with what they say on the pages. But I make them look me in the eye and I say to them... I KNOW what happens here with your folks. I know that they've let you down more times than anyone would ever believe. I am not here to get them in trouble, or to be Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy. I don't have a gimmick or a catch. I just want to help you have a bright spot this year. If you want an iPod, tell me what kind of music you like and Olivia will load it for you because you probably don't have a computer to load iTunes onto and I do not want anyone taking your iTunes card away from you. For that reason, I will also have your iPod engraved with YOUR name on it... that way it will always and only belong to YOU. I'm not saying I can get enough money together to get all of you a touch, but I will do the best I can to get at least 2 or 3 things on your list. So be honest with me... what is it you really need? Soccer shoes? A jacket for this winter? What size? Basketball shoes? Again, what size? What KIND do you like? What color? What is your favorite brand? Again, don't kill me here with the $200 ones or I can't get you anything else you need. So think about this... but I need it today... I only have a month to go raise the money to get this done and look at me... I promise you Olivia and I and maybe a few other people who want to help us will be back on Christmas Eve to bring you wrapped gifts to put beneath your tree. Do you usually have a tree? NO? We'll bring one... and we'll sit here and decorate it with popcorn and cranberries if we have to.. but we will make it yours and you will love it. It is the beginning of a new life for your family... it is a CHANCE for your folks to change... and a chance for YOU to know that life doesn't have to look like this.

My house used to look like this... Olivia has never lived like this though. Her room is polka dots pink and brown. She has a puppy that she picked this summer after we searched about 6 breeders and held a dozen puppies at the mall. Her name is Sailor and she's an Australian Shepherd, a cattle dog. But our cattle is a cat... she loves being rounded up, let me tell you.. with the dog always pushing her nose into the cat's behind... Olivia has nice, neat, clean clothes all folded or ironed and ready to wear in her closet and dressers. Her shoes are clean and she has about 15 pair. She has so many jammies we have a skinny dresser just for those. She loves jammies to wear in the evenings and sometimes, all weekend until I drag her to church or she convinces me that we'll watch a movie I choose if we can play hooky from church. We see movies when they come out. We go on vacation every summer...sometimes 2 or 3. We drive a new VW convertible the color of French vanilla ice cream and I will just put the top down to fit your Christmas tree inside of it.

Well, you get the idea. And you haven't celebrated the holidays, not really celebrated them, until you have joined us to see those children's faces and their tears when they see us pull up 12/24 and we have laundry hampers and boxes filled with bags and boxes all wrapped and ribboned and colorful and Christmas music blasting from our car. "She came back!" they start screaming inside to each other. "She really came back and they brought tons of food again." Oh, Olivia one time told me, "Mom, all they had in the whole kitchen was Top Ramen. The daughter told me that when they have milk, and often it is dry milk that they mix with water to make into milk, they crumble it in a bowl and add sugar packets they steal at Circle K or Fry's or McDonald's and that is everyone's job, even to take them from school. Salt and pepper too. And they pour the milk over the crumbled ramen noodles and sugar and pretend like it's cereal. And after school, they crumble it up with salt and pretend like it's microwave popcorn. Then at night, their mom heats it up and puts the sauce on it and they can have shrimp, or teriyaki chicken, or beef, or pork. Mama, they only have Top Ramen except on school days and they go early because they can have a real breakfast there and lunch and they get it free, so they try to go through the line twice and the ladies let them because they are starving.

We brought them 16 bags of groceries, most of which were non-perishable and frozen but some fresh fruit and meat and veggies and real cereal and milk and ice cream and kid food. Juice boxes and peanut butter and Ritz crackers and microwave popcorn in a case. No danger of their parents eating the food.

We have a man in Scottsdale who offered to buy the Bible we give to each and every family and of course, I give each family a signed copy of my first book, The Other Woman at the Well: a truthful accounting of addiction overcome. Hence, the name of the non-profit that grew out of it. Now I am just scrambling to raise another $1500 beyond what I paid the legal people to set up the 501 (c) (3) to pay the IRS so we can be on the lists and be eligible for grants and gifts from corporations who need that tax write-off. It is slow going to pay for this from my disability income alone and the few supporters I have, though one faithful one is the writer Debbie Macomber who has become my dear friend and also sends her books as gifts. She is Mother Christmas, after all... and all of this got her thinking about what we can give to others. Her last two books have been about that (see Hannah's List, just released).

Thank you for hanging in there with me to read this if you did,
and PLEASE encourage your friends to join my cause on Facebook and more importantly, to join our cause at addictionovercome(dot)com and make a donation to help us reach that IRS goal this year. Gosh, I wish we could find a way to have a fund-raiser that just blew it away quickly and efficiently...

Judith Ann Hillard

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