Dear American Pharmaceutical Companies,

Dear Makers of These Fine, Fine Pharmaceuticals I'm Taking,

I've been taking medication for my own ADHD for a grand total of two weeks now, and figure it's high time I report back to you on how things are going.

It's pretty freaking awesome.

I can focus and get stuff done. Important stuff, like paying bills, picking up my kids from school, and getting refills on all the medications this family takes. The best part is that I have less anxiety, because I'm not forgetting to do stuff / losing stuff / going into a frantic, yet inefficient, caffeine-fueled tailspin.

You wouldn't think that amphetamines would be soothing, but they are.

However, they're meds, not magic beans. It's not like I can suddenly find paperwork I misplaced three months ago. And it's not like the bottle of pills quietly fills out my tax returns for me while I'm sleeping.

I've had to have conversations with Cookie about why her anti-anxiety medication doesn't take away her anxiety completely. "They're not magic beans," I tell her. "We still have to, you know, actually do some work ourselves."

"Bummer," sighs my ten-year-old, anxious daughter.

Obviously, I would like you to make me some magic beans. You've done a bang-up job with the speed I'm on, and you know I adore the anti-depressans I've been knocking back for more than a decade, but I'm looking for a little something more from Big Pharma. Now I want magic beans.

Ideally, the magic beans would:

* Sort through the various messes I made before I started taking ADHD meds. This would include, but is not limited to, the three file boxes of random receipts, documents, school photos, report cards, unopened mail, expired coupons, and straw wrappers. The file boxes have a cute striped pattern and mock me every time I walk past, like mean girls in junior high.  One of the boxes was moved from our old house in Pennsylvania, to Texas, and back to Pennsylvania.  Unopened.  I would throw it out but there's probably baby pictures and Social Security cards in there.

* Failing that, maybe the magic beans could give me some sort of extra-sensory perception to know where the hell I packed the tax documents?

* Magic beans should let my daughter Cookie fall asleep when she is tired, instead of worrying about the fact that she is not falling asleep. We can get into a mega-spiral with this one, and once she actually didn't fall asleep until four o'clock in the morning. I wish I was joking.

* It would kind of be nice if the magic beans for myself and my other daughter, the Pork Lo Maniac, wouldn't wear off so dramatically. We both take medication for ADHD now, and around five o'clock, we both turn back into pumpkins. Spacey, forgetful pumpkins. It would be funny if I didn't still have to burn some fish sticks make a wholesome family dinner.

* We could also use some magic beans for when everyone is freaking the hell out at bedtime.  Yes, I know you've given me Benadryl already, and I'm grateful for that.  Benadryl is a gift from the gods on so many levels.  I hear it's even good for allergies.  But seriously, when one kid is worrying about falling asleep, two are having meltdowns, and another just remembered that she forgot to do her spelling homework, we need something heavier than Benadryl.  Like maybe one of those dart guns they use at zoos to knock out the lions before they clean their fangs, I don't know.  You're Big Pharma, you figure it out.

* Yes, I did just imply that I would be willing to chase my kids with a dart gun full of heavy-duty narcotics.  It's a humor blog, people.  Work with me here.

* One more things that magic beans should do: I should be able to slip a little something into the coffee of the nice people at early intervention to speed up the process of getting Little Dude's services set up.  Yes, I know they're totally under-staffed, over-worked, and up to their eyeballs in caseloads.  But maybe if they had a little speed in their coffee, they could just ... I don't know.  Work 24 hours a day or something?  When my husband and I were both working full time and going to night school, we used to say "sleep is a crutch for the weak," and "I'll sleep when I'm dead."  Perhaps some magic beans could be used to make that the new motto for the early intervention folks.

* Ooooh, even better.  Let's slip some magic beans into the coffee of our legislators who are, right this very minute, slashing education and special needs services out of the budgets.  Perhaps some magic beans could make them see the penny-wise, pound-foolishness of this?  And then maybe we'd have enough staff and money in our early intervention department that we wouldn't have to wait so long for services.

That's all, American Pharmaceutical Companies.  I know you're busy coming up with new and better ways to give our legislators old white men erections and everything, but maybe you could take a few minutes to work on these issues?  That would be awesome.

Thanks so much,

stark. raving. mad. mommy.