As many of you are aware, I turned 40 a little over a month ago. I was a little unnerved, I’d heard so many horror stories about this milestone. Then my birthday came and the impending doom never came. I did not self-destruct. I had not reached my expiration date but it did ignite a fire in me. It forced me to stop for a brief minute (because even though I am 40, my girls are only 5 and 7 and time waits for no mommy in this house) and take inventory.
I’ve been thinking a lot about Marina Krim and her children waiting to see what excuse their nanny, Yoselyn Ortega, gives for murdering Lucia and Leo Krim. I have been following the Krim murder case since the day it happened. It is one of those cases that I need answers to. When something so horrendous happens in the world, I need an explanation to be able to wrap my brain around it and process it. I called for prayers for the Krim family but now I want justice for the Krim family.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, two weeks ago, Marina Krim, returned home from swimming lessons with her 3-year-old Nessie to find every mother’s nightmare. The nanny, Yoselyn Ortega, who Marina considered part of the family and entrusted on a daily basis with her children’s well being, had brutally stabbed and murdered her children. Then, in front of Marina Krim, Yoselyn Ortega turned the knife on herself.
This is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, Yoselyn Ortega
I’ve yet to get my explanation as to what really happened that day at the Krim family home. As time goes by, more evidence comes out. In the latest interview of Yoselyn Ortega by the police, she has told them that she was disenchanted with Marina Krim on the day of the murders. She says that the Krim family treated her badly. Yoselyn Ortega says that she was underpaid, overworked and that Marina Krim was a bad woman, a crappy mother and that Marina Krim didn’t say goodbye to her the day of the murders and it hurt her feelings.
You know what I hear? Wah, Wah, Wah! This bitch is mean. She got pissed at her employer, because she is a spiteful, horrible person and then, just to hurt them irrevocably, she brutally murdered two small, innocent children, Leo and Lucia Krim.
I’ve read all kinds of crazy reactions to this case. People somehow placing blame on Marina and Kevin Krim. Onlookers judgmentally saying that Marina Krim was an entitled mother who didn’t care about her children, only using them as blog fodder but not really wanting to actually take care of them. The key word in that sentence is “entitled” people somehow think it’s a sin to have nice things, to be wealthy. I don’t know the Krims but I know that becoming wealthy takes a lot of hard work and drive so there is no entitlement to it. Besides, when did it become a sin punishable by murdering your children to have money? People are justifying Yoselyn Ortega’s brutal murdering ways because they feel that the poor nanny with her money problems and mental problems needed more attention.
Fuck her. She was an employee. Sure they may have cared for her but they hired her to take care of their children. That was her job. If she couldn’t do her job, I don’t think it is logical that people think the Krims should have paid her to have the privilege of coddling her and dealing with her issues. They tried to help her. They gave her extra jobs to earn more money. She didn’t like the jobs they gave her. Tough shit. From what I am seeing, she is lazy and crazy and a murdering, sadistic person. I’d like to see her get the death penalty. The truth is that this could happen to any one of us.
If you think she deserves mercy, remember there was no mercy for little Leo and Lucia, only betrayal and brutality.
She violated that sacred covenant between children, the nanny who loves them and the parents who trust these women to protect them and care for them. All nannies aren’t bad people; parents who have nannies aren’t lazy parents. Yoselyn Ortega was a crazy bitch and unless the situation was that Marina Krim chained her up to a radiator naked, beating her and depriving her of food and water, not paying her and making her care for her children and then Yoselyn Ortega slit Marina’s throat while trying to escape that nightmare, this case can never be justified.
I think people are scared and clutching at any explanation as to why a nanny would murder her charges because it truly is unthinkable. We want to place blame on someone, anyone. We don’t want to think that this could happen to any one of us. We don’t want to believe that bad things happen to good parents but they do. So, it’s easier for some people to blame Marina Krim for being a bad mother, for mistreating her nanny, for having a good life, or for being a bad person but she wasn’t.
Bottom line is that Yoselyn Ortega is a fucking mean and vengeful monster who deserved to have died along with those children. If I were Marina, I would have decapitated that bitch with the same knife she murdered my babies with. These are not thoughts that a mother should think but no mother should ever have to endure what Marina Krim has had to survive. Yoselyn Ortega deserves to suffer the same fate that she inflicted on little Lucia and Leo.
If mercy for Yoselyn Ortega comes to your mind, as a mother, imagine the all-consuming pain Marina Krim was/is feeling over the loss of her two beautiful children. Yoselyn Ortega did this!
My thoughts and prayers are with the Krim family and more specifically, Marina Krim. I imagine that every day that she keeps herself above ground is a win for her family. I’m also confident that what propels her forward is her love for her only surviving child, Nessie. May God bless this family and give them the strength to endure this grief.
As for Yoselyn Ortega, I pray that she experiences the same mercy that she extended to the Krim children. Perhaps, we should bring back quartering just this once. Yoselyn Ortega makes me sick and may her journey to hell be slow and painful.
Photos & Reuters/Carlo Allegri[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
I’ve got a presidential election hangover from all the excitement, anxiety and combustible tension of last night, did I mention lack of sleep? Holy cow, the baggage under my eyes has carry ons. It’s going to be hard to go presidential election cold turkey but I’ll be glad to put the vitriolic diatribes behind me; listening to them not spewing them. I never spew.
Election 2012 is closer than I’d ever like any election to be, exciting, intense and with a chance of chaos ensuing. Election 2012 is too close for my comfort. Today is election day and I am terrified. God, I love this country because we have choices. I was pretty proud of myself yesterday. It was one of those mommy moments where you feel like you actually did something right.
Tomorrow is Election Day. This year is no joke. I am frightened. History hangs in the balance. This is a history making election. I’ve been seeing a lot of tweets about how close the race is and how we should all stop bullying one another in this election. I agree, it is way too close. I also agree that no election should be about bullying. We should respect one anothers decision to cast our vote in any direction we see fit. I also feel that is our duty, as voters, to know the facts, weigh the options and vote for what is best for us and elect the candidate that we most strongly agree with on the most issues. It’s a process of intense elimination and employees a lot of common sense and interest.
Happy Halloween! Are you all still enjoying the Halloween candy hangover? My girls are still floating high on that sugar and I’m afraid when they come down they are going to crash and burn. I really don’t understand why the day after Halloween is not made into a national holiday so that kids can stay home from school and sleep in. It’s only right. It’s not cool having Halloween on a weekday, especially one so close to Thursday. Find me a politician who promises to make it a holiday and stay the hell out of my reproduction business and I’m voting for her.
The last couple of weeks have been a blur. Tomorrow, I can finally exhale. Good thing too, since I’m pretty sure that my back has gone out ( again). That’s what I get for walking around the neighborhood in the dark, cold and rain. But then again, what won’t we do for our kids…and a Heath bar?
We love Halloween, it’s the one day of the year that ,no matter your age, station or socio-economic rank, everyone can dress up like someone else and pretend in good fun. This Halloween, we attended our first zombie parade which was surreal to say the least. It may not have been the smartest idea considering that our children are 5 and 7. I say this will all certainty because both girls have been in our beds every night since seeing the zombie walk in our downtown Halloween celebration.
For Halloween, we had decided months ago that the 7-year-old would be Jasmine and the 5-year-old would be Cinderella. It was going to perfect, except than life happened. Being Jasmine for Halloween in the Midwest, is like having the bright idea to wear flip flop to climb Mt.Everest. It’s not gonna happen. So in the past week that Halloween costume got scrapped and my 7-year-old decided that she wanted to go as Holly Go Lightly from Breakfast at Tiffanys. How could I ever deny my child to want to go trick-or-treating as the amazing, Audrey Hepburn? I couldn’t. We made it happen.
My 5-year-old decided that if her sister was changing outfits than of course she had to too. Halloween is just not Halloween without at least 3 costume changes. So, Cinderella ended up being a cowgirl ( just like last year. Oh wait, last year she was Jesse from Toy Story but this year she was the world’s MOST adorable cowgirl. I’m serious I have documentation.)
Why a cowgirl you ask? Because my 5-year-old has a pair of cowboy boots that she is in love with and she built her entire costume around that pair of shoes. A girl after my own heart. Halloween was hectic and crazy, and my kids were wired on sugar and adrenaline, while I happily maneuvered the streets of our new neighborhood meeting all of the neighbors alongside my sister-in-law, while the Big Guy and the Big boys (and grandparents) hung back and made chili, had a campfire and handed out candy to the plethora of children begging for candy all throughout the neighborhood. It was brilliant and will be even more awesome if I don’t die of pneumonia from it.
We came home, all a little wetter and more exhausted than when we were when we left but there is nothing quite like hearing the laughter of children, while sitting around enjoying chili and conversation with family on Halloween.
All in all, we had a blast. After a crazy end of the month for mommy, who had the bright idea to organize both girls’ school Halloween parties (don’t try this at home folks, it’s not as easy as it sounds) and then invite the entire family over the night of Halloween and try to mingle with the neighbors, it ended up just perfect. For the first time in 3 years, the girls, the Big Guy and I were in our own house, surrounded by neighbors, family and friends and , in the end, home is where the heart is and my heart is wherever the Big Guy and our girls are at. How was your Halloween?
What did your kids dress up for on Halloween? Please share all the Halloween costumes on my Facebook page, I’d love to see them.
This has been an awful week and now the Krim children have been brutally murdered by their nanny. I am emotionally and physically spent. The events of the week have usurped me of all that I had to offer. I had planned on writing something light and funny today but his week was so devastating that I had not one but two Throat Punches and, to be honest, I could have had a dozen. There is just so much horror in reality these days. I read about no less than 5 children who were killed this week or whose bodies were found and it scares me to death, and it makes me afraid to raise my children in this world.
By all accounts, Marina and Kevin Krim were living the dream. Good marriage, good life, and great kids and then something went terribly wrong. A horrible person did a terrible thing that has changed the Krim family forever. My heart is breaking for these parents. I can not even write words to convey what I am feeling for them. I’m not rehashing the gory details of what happened to the Krim family last night. That is not what this is about. What this is about is the fact that there are so many parents losing their children, in so many different ways. Children are killing children and children are being murdered by complete strangers and even by loved ones. We never know who we can trust. But as parents, we do the absolute best we can for our children. We love them and we hope they grow up. And we pray that they turn out okay.
I wrote this week’s Throat Punch Thursday post about what happened to Autumn Pasquale at the hands of Dante and Justin Robinson. I expressed my sorrow at what had happened to this child, my sympathy for the mother of the boys who committed the crime and empathy for what she had to do in choosing to do the right thing and turn her boys in. I certainly think the boys deserve to be punished. They killed someone’s child and I expressed that very openly in my post and then I read the Facebook comments. I was shocked and appalled at how people were reacting. In a moment in time when two sets of parents had lost their children, when the world needed to show compassion and sympathy, the comment section showed blind hatred, judgment and racism and,quite frankly, ignorance and now I read that people are speculating and judging the Krim family in their darkest hour.
People are making these same blind judgements with half the facts and little to no compassion in the Krim case. Leave them alone. Pray for them. They are in pain. These parents lost their children. Life has been irrevocably altered and shattered for the Krim family. The grief of losing a child is deadly. It makes you want to stop. It makes you want to die with them. You are not in your right mind. You are forced to grasp at the only shred of normalcy that you can find because you will never be normal again. You are now damaged and your heart will forever be wounded beyond repair. It doesn’t matter how or when you lost your child, this wound is the same. You are broken. So, o all the assholes out there saying..”check out your nannies more thoroughly”, “Spend more time with your kids” “be a better parent.” I say, Shut the fuck up to those people! Because anything any one of you are thinking of blaming on these parents of these children, they have already thought it. They have already tried to find reason in this horrible thing, where there is absolutely none. They did the best they could. We can not protect our children from every single thing or crazy person that the world throws at us. Try as we may and believe me we all try. This could have happened to any of us. We can not control the world.
So tonight, I am not asking for throat punches or revenge or punishment or a pound of flesh. I am asking for prayers for parents, for peace in their heart for the courage to carry on when no parent should have to. Pray that their children’s souls are at rest. Pray for the family left behind to suffer the wound, that they may someday once again know peace in their hearts. Pray for a better world to raise your own children and pray for the strength to know better than to pass judgment on parents who are in so much pain that they can barely breathe.
photo credit: ulisse albiati via photopin cc
Jane Roe, of Roe vs. Wade, whose real name is Norma McCorvey has made an anti-Obama ad. Jane Roe, the very same woman who is responsible for our current abortion laws. The same Jane Roe who fought tooth and nail to get abortion legalized when she needed it has now had a change of heart.
Two teenage brothers, Justin,15, and Dante, 17, Robinson, have been charged with allegedly murdering of 12-year-old, Autumn Pasquale, who disappeared while riding her BMX bike. After a 48-hour search for Autumn Pasquale, investigators found her body stuffed into a recycling bin behind a vacant house next to the one where the boys lived with their family. These sociopaths beat her, strangled her and stuffed her into the bin like a piece of garbage. This was someone’s little girl.
There are not enough hours in the day. I don’t know when this happened. When the girls were babies, I thought for sure that I was stretched as thin as I could possibly be. I was always blissfully exhausted. It was all about the babies, all the time. I was neglected. The house was neglected. My husband was even a little neglected but everyone knew and understood…I had babies. So, I got a pass of sorts. There were simply not enough hours in the day to be a good mommy and to be a crack chef with a perfectly cleaned and decorated home. I knew it, my husband knew it and anyone passing by reading the “please don’t ring the doorbell, there’s a sleeping baby in the house” sign KNEW IT!
But a strange phenomenon has happened. I had my children in my 30’s. To me, it didn’t seem old. It seemed logical and, for me, it was the right time. I just turned 40 and I was all, embrace the change and I am. I am embracing the shit out of 40. I’m squeezing that bitch so hard that her head might pop off. I swear to God, I feel about 30 but I have gathered some wisdom and I actually feel like I am in a better place in life than I actually was at 30. Surprise.
I was just having this discussion with the Big Guy yesterday, our life used to be filled to the hilt in every nook and cranny, oozing babies. Our life revolved around our girls. It had to, how would they survive and thrive if it didn’t? I loved it. Sure, I complained about having no time and no sleep but damn it, I loved every single minute of it. And any mom who has had a child in her 30’s will tell you, they keep us young. Hell yeah, when you are chasing babies and being pregnant, you feel younger because you are at the beginning of that part of your life. Until one day, reality sneaks up on you.
Days are flying by at warp speed.The routine is packed full and many of you probably recognize it because you are living it: wake up, wake kids up, feed kids, get kids to school, have coffee, work, break for lunch, smush as many errands as possible into your lunch break, do laundry, fold laundry, never put laundry away, pick up the house, pick up the kids, do homework with the kids, cook dinner, give kids a bath,5 minutes of idle chit chat with husband, argue kids into bed, take a shower, check on kids, assure kids that if they don’t go to sleep right this instant you are taking away Halloween, remember that you forgot to call your mom back, organize the class Halloween party for both kids, email 30 parents, watch television while checking emails, brush teeth, every other Friday and Tuesday have a quickie with your husband, get interrupted by a child who has woken up,fall asleep, be woken up by your husband to finish, go to the bathroom, go to sleep for 3 hours until the other kid comes in to ask you to walk them back to bed and watch them until thy fall asleep, stumble back to your room, go pee for the 3rd time and then wake up 2 hours later when the damn alarm goes off, REPEAT!
Next thing you know, you are the oldest mom in the class. Fuck! I hate when that happens. You might not look the part, oh but you feel the part. That moment when your 7-year-old knows all the lyrics and you don’t even know who the hell the artist is, that’s when it hits you. Or when you look at the other moms at pick up and think, Geez there sure are a lot of teen moms at this school. Or when you realize you don’t even know what is hip to wear anymore. You are going between yoga pants and DVF and this other mom is wearing TOMS and skinny jeans. That’s when you know. You are most definitely not in the same place in life. 40 may not be ancient but when the other mothers my age have kids in middle school and mine are in the beginning stages of elementary school. You just know. One day, someone is going to think I am my daughters’ grandma and then I am going to fall down and die…on the spot.
I am 40 years old and there are not enough hours in the day to get everything I need to do done. My life is good. I make a living doing what I love. I have two wonderful kids ( mostly except for the rare occasions everyday at bedtime when their heads spin off and they lose their minds). I’m married to a man that I not only love but honestly, LIKE. I have great friends and I’m finally at a place where I was feeling comfortable in my skin. It lasted almost a month to the day. Then last night I woke up with night sweats and then I realized I did the same thing the night before. Next thing you know, I was up at 3:45 googling night sweats and perimenopause and on the verge of tears.
It was most likely because our room was 107 degrees and one of the littles had found their way into our bed and was snuggled into me but you know, perimenopause is where my optimistic mind went at 3:45 am. There are not enough hours in the day to worry about imaginary problems.