We had a great Christmas with Aaron home. He seemed to like his St Max medal, he has always been such a hard kid to read. Unfortunately me and Aaron weren't feeling very well which led to a lot of laying around. My daughter had to finish making Christmas dinner. Such is life.
So I won't call it a New years resolution but I have found something I want (need?) to change. Stereotyping, labeling, I have realized that I have become very bad about it. Aaron frequently had dark circles under his eyes. A former employee, an addict, always had dark circles in the morning when she got to work right after getting her methadone treatment. So now if I see somebody with dark circles under their eyes they are automatically an addict. Now of course in the head of somebody not living our (parents of addicts) lives, those people are most likely tired, didn't sleep well, possibly even ill at the time, but not to me. I guess what really made me take stock in my thinking was seeing the new Harry Potter movie. Ron Weasley (sp) looked like a major heavy duty addict. I have actually had trouble getting the look of him out of my head. Of course I know it is a movie and it was just makeup but it made me wonder, is this child star an addict in real life? So many of them are. This is not good thinking when you deal with the public. Surely we don't have that many customers that are addicts?
Today, I'm spending valuable one on one time with Aaron. I think we are going bowling after we go to my mothers and show her how to use her new IPAD.
Happy New Year!!!
P.S. I can't remember whose blog I read it on and didn't have time to leave a comment when I read it but, yes Aaron was an early walker too.
My mom is still bad about stereo typing people as drug addicts, and I have been clean for years! My whole family shakes their heads at her when she does it, but I have to admit that I often think the same thing...but, I never voice it. I wait tables, and my mom is the worst to stereotype a bad waiter of being an addict...I guess beacasue of her experience with me. If a server forgets her sauce on the side, or doesn't refill her drink, she always says, "He/she is probably high." I think that after experiencing addiction first hand (as either a parent of a user), we know certain signs to look for...and then, we start seeing them everywhere. I think my mom's comments would have upset me at one time, but now we laugh about it together. I tell her I think I have ruined her forever when she does it, and then we both laugh.
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