Justin Harris Wouldn't Know Christian Values if They Hit Him in The Face

I will be the first to admit that I cannot quote scripture with any degree of reliability. But I will also say that because of a lot of time spent in church both growing up and as an adult, I have a pretty solid understanding of the Bible and the tenets that it promotes. As I understand it, as a Christian you are supposed to be kind, helpful, loving, supportive and to help take care of those who are unable to take care of themselves. Does that sound about right?

These Christian morals forged the foundation of my belief system and were one of the reasons I have always wanted to adopt from foster care. I wanted to give a home to a child who needed love and stability more than anyone. With my little guy here, I feel complete.

That's also why I find people like (R) State Rep. Justin Harris of Arkansas completely morally reprehensible. He and his wife Marsha claim to be Christians. They adopted two little girls from foster care but after six months found it all too hard to deal with, so gave the wee ones to a guy he had actually fired from his business because the guy was unreliable. Hey, I can't give you a severance because you're a terrible employee but here...take these innocent little girls instead. Seems logical, right? The girls were four and six years old and the guy ended up raping one of them. He plead guilty and sits in jail now, where I hope he rots for a very long time. If interested, you can read more about this sad tale here.



But wait, it gets better. Justin Harris held a press conference proclaiming that HE was the victim, not the little girl who got raped because of of his callous disregard for her safety. He said that he and his wife were forced to abandon the girls because they had severe behavioral issues and DCFS wouldn't help them. He said that the child's pediatrician told them to do this. This is all hard to believe. I call shenanigans on the Harrises "Christian values" for multiple reasons:

1. It doesn't happen a lot but adoptions do occasionally not work out and state social service agencies have protocols in place for taking back foster children whose adoptions failed, for whatever reason. He claims he was threatened by DCS but I don't buy that for a minute. FYI, good Christians don't lie to save their own hides.
2. The Harrises claim that they didn't know what they were getting into but the little girls' foster mom says they were told exactly what to expect and said that they had resources in place to help. This is what Cheryl Hart says: "i am the foster mom of the kids he discarded. We all tried to tell Marsha and Justin of the difficulties they would endure with the girls. They would not listen. They kept bragging about their degrees in early childhood development and their experience with children. Plus they insisted they had all the therapists on hand at their preschool to help with their problems. Plus they said God called them to do this and he would get them through anything. We tried to not send the girls there and Cecile Blucker pulled strings and blackmailed DHS workers. I would love to correspond with you about this tragic preventable catastrophe." That is a comment on this Change.org petition, which I have signed.
3. The Harrises continued to cash the subsidy given to them by the state even after they abandoned the girls. Um, fraud much?? I guess they forgot about that whole, "thou shalt not steal" Commandment when reading their Bible Cliff Notes.
4. Justin Harris is a state representative in Arkansas. One would think that he would use his power and stature as an elected official to unlock doors and change laws, granting more support to families like his own. However, there is absolutely no evidence that he did anything. Instead he introduced legislation that would allow daycare centers and pre-schools not be forced to have sprinkler systems (FYI, he and his wife own a "Christian" pre-school).
5. And most importantly, there is help available. Lots of it. For free. I know this because I've been there myself. Christopher came to me with some of the same history that these girls had and believe me, I get how difficult it is to raise kids with complex trauma history. I got called home from work one day because my son had threatened to kill his nanny that day. On multiple occasions, adults have had to intervene when Christopher started attacking other children with a stick. All this was very scary to me but you know what I didn't do? I didn't hand my child over to a pedophile. Instead I got him help. A lot of it. There was a point where he received therapeutic services three times a week and I also got him referred to the Boston Children's Hospital Developmental Medicine Center for even more intensive therapy. His behavioral pediatrician there specializes in foster and adoptive children with complex trauma histories and has been an incredible resource for us. The best thing of all is, these services are all free because foster children (in Massachusetts at least) get free healthcare until their 18th birthday. This is done to help incentivize an adoption because let's face it....healthcare is really expensive and these kids need a lot of it. But if you get the services, they really do work. Anyone who has ever met Christopher will tell you that he is a completely different child today, for the better. It doesn't happen overnight and requires hard work and patience. Too bad that the Harrises just couldn't be bothered.

I am so sorry for the two little girls that have had to repeatedly suffer at the hands of people who were supposed to be there and protect them. This story makes me both angry and sad. I can only hope that the media attention this story has generated helps save another child from potential harm. I posted this story to my Facebook page asking people to volunteer time and/or money to children's charities because we need more caring, loving people to ensure the safety of our nation's most at-risk children. I would also like to ask, dearest God, please watch over the foster children who need you and help to keep them safe from harm. Amen.

Why the school assignment to bring a baby picture to class can be traumatizing to foster and adopted kids

Things have been going really well with Christopher lately. December was a bit rough because of all the excitement surrounding the holidays but he has settled down nicely in January. As long as the routine stays status quo, then I could anticipate that Christopher's behavior would be manageable.

Of course, the key phrase in that sentence is "status quo" and in life, you just have to expect the unexpected sometimes. I learned that lesson the other day when I received an email from Christopher's teacher requesting the following:

"Please send in a baby picture of your child in an envelope or baggie by 1/27/15. It is for a writing activity and will be returned."

Please send in a baby picture.

Sounds like an innocuous request right? What kid doesn't have adorable baby pictures? It would seem like the hardest part of this project would be to find only one adorable photo out of the thousands you have to send in.

Not always so.

In our case, Christopher came to live with me at the age of 3-3/4. I have one baby photo of him because his birth mother gave it to his social worker before she lost parental rights. She had wanted Christopher to know where he came from and I do respect that. Someday I will show him this photo...but it will not be forced by a school assignment when Christopher is too young and still too emotionally vulnerable to be able to handle it. Not to mention, in the photo he is in the arms of his birth father--a man he hasn't seen since he was 18 months old. How would Christopher write about THAT? He doesn't even know this man. 

This assignment is forcing Christopher to address his early childhood trauma, his loss of his birth parents and it's making him explain things to his classmates that he doesn't have the tools to do. Also, the kids in his class really don't have the emotional maturity to handle the message. That's an awful lot for a first grader with PTSD due to early childhood trauma to take on by himself.

Not knowing what to do about this issue, I posted it to my Facebook page to see if any of my school teacher friends had any insights. A few did respond.

K wrote:

The personal time line will come up a couple of times in MA Curriculum Frameworks and this is exactly why teachers push back. As you struggle with this, understand other families with adopted children - some from equally as scary situations but in other parts of the world - are also struggling with this assignment. The point of the exercise right now is to understand we all come from someplace and have roots from which we grow. I have seen parents do things like, "This is a picture from when I was born, but these are pictures from my home...."

R wrote:

We normally give the option of doing a "fantasy" or fake family such as the Simpsons.

S wrote:

I think growth and maturity will lend a hand on his acceptance of being "different" but I think a good teacher would embrace this as a moment of learning and acceptance in the classroom. Good luck on this journey. You are a terrific person and a great Mom, you'll own this. Xo

I was starting to feel a little bit better abut this assignment because it seems like other teachers have handled it well. But then a fellow adoptive mom posted this same exact question to a listserv I am on for parents of kids adopted from foster care (nice to know I'm not alone). There has been a firestorm of responses because it's a difficult assignment for all our families. Here are just a few of the responses I saw there.

You are wise to be concerned about this. My daughter made the mistake (in 4th grade) of openly disclosing to kids in her class that she was adopted, including some of the sad truth of why the state put her into foster care, the whole 9 yards -- after which many of the kids who'd previously befriended her started to avoid her and/or publicly tease her. Her teacher, an adoptive parent himself, explained to me that at that age, the thing a kid worries about more than anything is not being safe and secure with their parents, and so because of that fear would avoid anyone/anything that could make them worry more about losing their parent(s). "If it could happen to them, maybe it could happen to me."

Yikes! The last thing I want is for my child to risk being bullied and harassed because he was adopted. The poor kid doesn't want to feel different...he wants to have friends and just be "normal" like everyone else.

Another response from a mental health crisis counselor scared me as well:

I was called to a school on an MCI (mobile crisis) call for a kid who was 'out of control'. She ended up being hospitalized. What triggered it? No surprises.

Apparently all the kids had to bring in baby pictures, hang them on the wall and everyone had to guess who everyone was. The girl didn't have one, so with the parent and teacher talking, it was agreed that she was able to bring in one of when she was older. She brought one from when she was adopted at 8yrs of age. The kids made fun her because she didn't have a baby picture.

The issue was, her classmates were not okay with it. They asked tons of questions and when she said she didn't have one, they made fun of her. Kids are not as sensitive to others' feelings like adults are.

Some children, DX with PTSD, these type of projects can open a box that shouldn't be opened in front of a classroom of their peers and only should be opened with a trained professional that deals with trauma.

Suddenly this "innocent" assignment doesn't appear to be so innocent after all does it? In the scenario above, the teacher clearly handled it poorly by not intervening and explaining why this child did not have any baby pictures. That said though, I think it's asking a lot of the teacher to understand early childhood trauma. Teachers are teachers...not trained mental health professionals and they are extremely busy just trying to teach 25 kids. They already have their hands full and then some.

This is all new territory for me but I figure the best thing to do in this scenario would be to enlist the assistance of the school and work as a team. So with that in mind, I've emailed both the teacher and the school psychologist to ask their help. I haven't heard back yet from either yet but we are in day 4 of snow day-cation (thank you Blizzard Juno!) so I suspect they won't be back online until Monday. The photo is due on Monday however and since I can't send a baby photo into school with Christopher, I may send a picture of him with his extended (adoptive) family, along with a note on why I'm doing this. The teacher can choose to do whatever she likes with the assignment I guess at that point but I do want to have the school psychologist at least aware in case the teacher chooses to move forward with some sort of birth story.

This is a tough assignment for any family that does not come from traditional circumstances. In Christopher's case, he's adopted from foster care but there are kids adopted from overseas with tragic histories who would have trouble with this. And what if your family was traditional but you lost all your photos in a fire? Or the hard drive where you stored your digital photos crashed and you lost everything. These can all happen and what then? The kid will still feel different and that's just not right.

Considering my town has a large DCF office, I suspect this isn't the first time Christopher's teacher has had to address this issue and based on what I've been reading on the MA foster adoption listserv, it won't be the last. We'll see what happens on Monday I guess.

Watch "Removed": An Award Winning Short Film About a Foster Child

A friend posted to my Facebook page earlier this week a link to the award-winning movie "Removed"; the story of what it's like to be a foster child in America. It's only 12 minutes long so I do recommend if you have some time to watch this. The end literally made me cry. Tears and everything.

The story was very realistic. It showed the abuse that this little girl and her brother endured, which caused them to be removed from the mother's custody and placed into separate foster homes. You could see the sadness and confusion on this little girl's face and she was moved from home to home, carrying all her belongings in a garbage bag.  I'll never forget that Christopher's clothes were handed to me in three drawstring garbage bags so this is very true and accurate to real life.

The movie also shows the little girl's anger and the behavioral issues that emerge because she feels she has no control over her life. And it shows the lack of trust these children learn to have. Oh how I can relate to that! For the first year and a half I had him, Christopher didn't trust me and didn't trust his pre-school teachers. He had been taken away before so why get close to these people if they were only going to hurt him? He used to act out in defiance, just willing us to give up on him. The screaming tantrums, the "you're not my favorite mommy" comments, and just acting out, that happened all the time. It was exhausting. Truly exhausting.

The little girl had flashbacks from her old life which shows she probably should have a diagnosis of PTSD. She started screaming when she got a new dress from her foster mom that reminded her of the domestic violence she witnessed at her mom's home. This of course confused the foster mom as she had no idea what caused the outburst.

Christopher has a diagnosis of PTSD and would freak out over thunderstorms, smoke alarms and swimming over the drain at the YMCA pool. I was of course confused as well and his therapists would tell me that there are a lot of experiences this little boy had that I just don't know about. So when he would scream and cry like that over what seems silly to me, I would just comfort him and let him know he was safe.

The movie also showed the conflicted emotions that these children have over visits with their birth mom. In the movie you see the little girl refusing to interact with the mom during a visit. She's angry at her and for good reason. Mom failed to keep her safe.

Christopher's last visit with his birth mom resulted in a screaming tantrum when we got home and a punch in my eye. For a three year old, he has a remarkable strong right hook, let me tell you. He was angry though because his mother had told him out of spite that he was going to be given away again and that this wasn't his forever home. She was angry that she couldn't have her child so she wanted to hurt him, which of course is a big reason why she couldn't have her child. I mean seriously, who does that? That one comment messed with his head for months, by the way. It was probably the single worst thing she could have said to him at the time.

Like the little girl in this movie though, Christopher eventually began to heal and to trust. We still have our struggles and I still often have to remind Christopher that this is his forever home but at least now he believes me when I tell him.

I don't want to give away the end of the movie but I do want to say...it made me tear up. You need to see it for yourself.

To watch "ReMoved", please click here.

When Your Son Doesn't Believe This is his Forever Home

What do you do when your adopted son from foster care tells you that he doesn't believe this is his forever home?

Ever since Christopher's therapy services ended, the lack of consistency for him has caused him to doubt his stability here. Just this morning over breakfast, Christopher looked down and admitted, "I don't believe this is my forever home. I think you're going to send me back to foster care".

How freaking heartbreaking is it that my child believes this?

I tell him all the time...I mean ALL the time...that I love him and that this is his forever home. I ask him if he believes me though and he tells me no. I honestly don't know what else to do.

His teacher tells me he appears to be depressed at school. She said he often cries and that she and the two Paras will try to make him smile.

I also know that when I get upset with him, he thinks I'm going to give him away right then and there. I try to explain to him that sometimes little boys don't make good choices and that makes mommies upset. But as his momma I will always love him. He just doesn't believe me and that's what makes it so hard.

I do have Christopher signed up for new therapy services through the school so that will start soon. I think this will actually be a better fit for him and I'm highly optimistic for him. The therapist has been with the school for 16 years and told me that she's not going anywhere. This will provide Christopher with the consistency going forward that he desperately needs.

Also I think she's a little more seasoned than the previous ones I had (they were both in their 20) and I think understands how to really truly help. I think that the other therapists understood the issue but were more about solving for the immediate need than about long-term therapeutic care. When I would say Christopher struggles with believing that this is his forever home, I would get told that this is something that he'll have to work through his entire life because of his trauma history. Well, yeah...isn't that what we're in therapy for?

Also one last positive note for this therapist: She's in the school and right down the hall from Christopher's classroom. So she and the teacher will communicate (hopefully) and that information could be used to better provide the kiddo with the treatment he needs. Before the teacher was not speaking to the therapy team and everyone was operating in a vacuum. Better to have the team approach, me thinks.

So I'm happy and relieved to have new therapy services starting but how do I deal with Christopher's fear of being taken away again in the meantime? I try to be there for him. I hug him and cuddle with him and tell him that I love him. Sometimes it just doesn't seem to be enough for this little guy. Makes me sad.

What a Rough Week!

I am so glad this week is over and I'm sure my kiddo is glad too.

Christopher came home from school with notes every single day this week. Here is a roundup of our less than stellar week:

Monday: Threw pencils at kids across the room
Tuesday: Hitting, biting, pushing and spitting on kids in the after school program
Wednesday: I didn't even read the note
Thursday: Kicked a girl in the head in the after-school program
Friday: Crying in class; Jumped on friend because he wanted the book she had in her hands

Aaahhh the joys of an ADHD former-foster kid.

What happened this week? We had been doing so well the last few months and now it seems almost like we're back at square one again. I do have some theories:

1. Christopher's therapy is about to end and the therapy team told him on Monday that he was going to "graduate" next week. Christopher has lost two therapists before these two because they had left the practice to get new jobs. Each time Christopher transitioned away from the old therapist to a new therapist, he acted out in ways similar to the above. It makes sense that Tuesday was his worst day because that was the day after he was told he was losing Mary and Mike.
   
   I asked Christopher on Wednesday evening if losing Mike and Mary was upsetting him and he said yes. I also asked him if he thought he was going to be taken away again and he said yes to that as well. Ugh. So my child is acting out because he's afraid he's going to taken away and put into another stranger's foster home. What a heartbreaking thought. I can't imagine always being afraid that I was going to lose my home and my family but this is the reality for so many kids unfortunately. Thankfully that's not the reality for MY kid though and I reassured him that this was his forever home and that he was stuck with me.
   
   It's frustrating because clearly this kid needs some sort of help but what do you do when the services your child gets to help him with his trauma history is what is actually causing the problems? I can talk to the therapists but what can they do? They're "graduating" him next week. Then we're on our own. Not really what I need but it is what it is.
   
   I spoke with Christopher's teacher and she said he could see the therapist at the school if he has an IEP. We are scheduled for IEP testing later this month so hopefully he qualifies and can start receiving services through the school.
   
   
2. After being off school for two weeks, Christopher is way off of his routine. Christopher does not do well at all when he's off his routine. He may need some time to re-adjust to his long days at school and the after-school program again. Lots of kids. Lots of stimulation. And lots of being tired by the end of the day. All those factors can be rough on a kid with ADHD. Hopefully he adjusts next week.
   
   
3. I may have forgotten to give Christopher his ADHD medication on Tuesday. Oops on my part. I too am off my normal routine and with trying to remember so many different things in the morning, I think I forgot possibly one of the most important. After his tough day on Tuesday though, I will never let that mistake happen again.

We'll see if next week is better and I truly hope it is, or else I'll have to figure something out. We'll see. Wish us lots of luck. I think we may just need it.

Foster Kids and ADHD

I just read an article that cited a Canadian study that found kids who come from "unstable families" have a higher "stress thermostat" set in hyper-vigilant mode. This results in a heightened sense of fight or flight, sleep deprivation, wired nerves and ADHD, especially in young boys.

This is so 100% Christopher. His therapists have actually used the words hyper-vigilant when describing him to me. Poor kid had a very difficult life with his birth mother. He was forcibly yanked away from her by police in what must have been a terrifying episode involving lots of yelling, flashing lights, sirens and loaded weapons all in his little terrified 2 year old face. Then he was bounced from foster home to foster home to foster home, confused, alone, without any one single stable person in his life. This little kid believed no one would look out for him and he became hyper-vigilant to his surroundings because even at the age of two, he believed he had to look out for himself. Makes total sense to me.

This hyper-vigilance made it difficult for me to decide that he had to have ADHD. I thought if I gave him time along with a lot of stability, love and patience, that his impulsiveness would ebb away. And in some ways it did. A year ago, Christopher couldn't even stand in the bathroom to brush his teeth. I'd hand him his toothbrush, he'd grab it and run out of the room, with me behind him yelling to come back. This happened every single day.

I had to double lock every door of the house because Christopher used to run outside into the street if he felt like it. I also couldn't walk down the street with Christopher initially because he was so impulsive, he'd run away from me and into the street. Thank the Lord nothing ever happened to him. However, I did always tell his social worker what was going on because God forbid, something ever did happen to this child, I wanted to make sure she knew I wouldn't have been at fault. I really thought it was that serious.

Christopher fits into other risk factors as well:

• He was born a month early. According to a Swedish study, children who were born prematurely run a higher risk of contracting ADHD. This is because their little brains are not yet developed enough to navigate the modern world and neuro pathways end up forming incorrectly. Preemies experience heightened neo-natal pain, separation from mom (due to incubators), lots of lights and beeping sounds and sometimes this is overwhelming for the underdeveloped little tyke.
• Christopher was born into poverty. His father was an illegal alien who was deported from the country when he was just a baby. His mother was poor and probably did not feed him nutritionally balanced meals. (Since Christopher exhibits food hoarding symptoms at times, it's pretty obvious neglect meant little to no food during important growth times). Poor people tend to feed their kids more processed foods and fewer fish and veggies. All this can affect the development of a child's brain
• Christopher was born to a mentally ill mother. His birth mother, although never tested, suffered from some form of mental illness; probably something of the bi-polar variety. Mental illness is unfortunately often hereditary so it makes perfect sense that Christopher would suffer some sort of illness that could be found in the DSM-IV.

So fast forward to today and I am not at all shocked that all this instability, poverty and history of mental illness has resulted in an ADHD diagnosis in Christopher. Frankly, we're lucky that it's not worse than it is. Christopher's illness responds very well to both medication and diet and for that I am thankful. He is smart, a successful student, an outstanding athlete and he has many friends. He even told me he has a girlfriend in his Kindergarten class. Considering the background this kid comes from he's doing phenomenally well.

If you're interested in learning more about the causes of ADHD, feel free to click here and here.

Marathon Monday Memories

Good luck today to all the Boston Marathon qualifiers who get to register for next year's marathon. I heard the BAA opened up 9,000 more spots in the field to accommodate all the 2013 runners who never got the chance to finish because of the bombing. The BAA is truly a class organization.

On April 15, 2013 I was at mile 21 of the Boston Marathon with my best friend Jan, another friend named Sue, Jan's young daughters, my little son and my dog. I had considered taking us down to the finish line because that's where all the action's at but decided it would be too chaotic with so many little kids. Who knew this would be the best decision I could have made in my life for all of us. Otherwise, I might not have been here to write about the day. I shudder to think about that.

It was a beautiful sunny day and we had so much fun cheering on the runners. I had several friends running it this year and I was there to support them, as they did me when I ran in 2011. I love love love the Boston Marathon. Just such a magical experience every year for me.

We paid no attention to the police cars that zoomed past us, sirens blaring. I just assumed someone had fallen or passed out. That happens. I mean hey, running a marathon is hard work!

 It wasn't until we had left the course and gone for lunch that we saw the news: Two bombs had gone off at the finish line at the Boston Marathon and there were dozens of injuries. More tragically, there were three fatalities, one of whom was an 8 year old boy. How heartbreaking. And scary.

Since I posted on my Facebook status that I was going to be at the Boston Marathon cheering on friends, my phone now started going off like mad. Everyone I knew wanted to make sure we were okay. My brother Chris had some scary news though. His daughter (my niece) Kirsten was at the finish line and no one could get in touch with her. I was now sick to my stomach.

Unbeknownst to us at the time, cell phone service was turned off to ensure that another IED couldn't be detonated. However you could still text. So I was the one family member to get in touch with Kirsten, thank goodness. I told her to call her dad and brother. I then start calling friends and check in on Facebook to let others know that we're okay. It takes several hours but thankfully everyone I know checks in. They are shaken but safe.

As a mom with three little kids in tow, I knew I had to get everyone home to safety. Bridges in and out of the city were closed (no one knew what we were dealing with) and so my friend Sue had to come to my house as she couldn't get back to hers. Fine with me. The more the merrier. We cooked dinner, ate ice cream and waited for the MBTA to open up so Sue could go home.

That night and in the days that followed, I watched a ton of news coverage regarding the bombing. They didn't know who had done it and for several days residents of metro Boston lived in fear that there would be another bombing. I was afraid that I'd walk past a garbage can during the work day and watch it blow up in my face. Everyone was really scared.

When Jeff Baumann woke up from his coma and ID'd the guy who dropped a backpack at his feet, everything started happening very quickly. Next thing you know, Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev have killed an MIT cop, car jacked a guy on Memorial Drive and threatened to kill him too. Officer Dic Donohue is shot and critically injured. The police then shoot and kill Tamerlan but Dzhokhar goes on the run.

I watch all this on TV and I know I shouldn't be doing this in front of my 5 year old but I can't help it. I am completely freaked out and need to know right NOW what is going on. I can't wait till Christopher goes to bed. I need real time information to make the decisions that will keep us safe.

On Friday morning, Tamerlan is dead but Dzhokhar is still missing. Governor Patrick closes Boston and tells everyone to stay home. But my company made me go into the office. Crazy but just bad timing. We have a vendor visiting and have very real deadlines to meet. So I update my Facebook status to say I'm going into Boston, so that people know where I am, just in case. As I drive to drop Christopher off at pre-school, I'm listening to NPR the entire way so I know if I'm driving into danger or not. Christopher asks me questions like, why do people kill police officers? Do they want to kill us too? I have no answers for him. I dropped him off, hugged him extra tightly and left for work.

Work was emotionally rough that day. At noon I get a call from pre-school saying they are closing for the day. I high tail it out of Boston and go pick up the kid. We spend the rest of the day locked in our house.

That night more craziness unfolds on the news as Dzhokhar is found hiding in someone's backyard in Watertown. The world is watching live as Dzhokhar is captured safely and transported to the hospital.  Boston is finally out of danger. We can now start to try to make sense out of all this. Although several months later, I really still can't. I probably never will. What makes a kid from Cambridge decide one day that he's going to go blow up small children? Sigh...RIP little Martin Richard.

While all this is going on, Christopher is still a traumatized ex-foster kid who is at this point, dealing with the fact that his therapist is leaving her practice. He HATES transitions and is acting out. On top of that, now won't sleep alone in his own bed because he's afraid of terrorists. He's afraid to leave my side and asks me a lot of questions I just don't have the answer to.

A Facebook friend posted photos he found on the Internet of the two bombings. It appears that someone got hold of the security camera footage from outside Marathon Sports and posted it to Twitter. Like an idiot I click on the link and see some really graphic photos; images I wish I had not seen. I didn't sleep at all that night.

I was completely stressed out, needed sleep and I was all alone here with my kid to take care of things myself. It wasn't easy. But compared to the folks who were at the finish line that day, I had it pretty easy. I really should stop complaining.

Fast forward, Boston is healing slowly but surely. On Facebook, I follow Jeff Bauman, the Norden Brothers and Heather Abbott, three victims of the Marathon Bombing who lost five legs between them. I also saw the picture of little Jane Richard sporting her new prosthetic leg (here). I have to say each one of these people is amazing and if anybody exemplifies Boston Strong, it's these courageous individuals.

So good luck to my friends who get to register today for the 2014 Boston Marathon. I guarantee you we will be out there cheering you on as I have done every year prior. We are after all...Boston Strong.