Falling in a deep hole

My little girl is having seizures. Out of the blue, no fever, no warning. I would love to say that I am perfectly calm about this, that I understand that these things happen, with no adverse effects, all the time. Especially in my family. But it's never happened like this, not so many, so frequently. Add to that the fact that I volunteer with a population where I can name at least 3 children who started with seizures and ended up with brain cancer.....you get a big heaping dose of crazy.

I would also love to say that I trust God so much that I'm not worried. It's not really that I don't trust Him, but I realize that my comfort is not His priority. After all, He was in control when my babies died. He was in control when Rose was treated as trash. He was in control when I was abused as a child. None of that changes His sovereignty, or His absolute goodness. These are the things I know:

I know He loves me, and my daughter, enough to allow His son to be treated as trash, be abused, and go through intense physical discomfort, even unto death. I know that if the choice is between someone trusting in Him for salvation and my comfort, He will choose salvation for them. I know there is never pain without purpose. I know I will never understand that or desire it.

So I am fearful, and sad, and angry. But honestly, I have no where else to go. I can either go through this, trust that it is good, and keep running to Him or go through this believing He doesn't care, doesn't listen and do it by myself. If I've got to fall through a deep hole, I want Him at the bottom of it.

What's wrong with public education?

So I’m listening to Diane Rehm on NPR (I know, I know, but I gotta know how they think)and she’s interviewing Bill Gates Sr. http://wamu.org/programs/dr/09/04/29.php is where you can listen to the interview, I don't know if it includes the caller I reference. I do NOT like this man. He was talking about the Gates foundation and how one of their objectives is to help public education. So of course she asked what was wrong with public education and he basically threw teachers under the bus. According to him, it’s only the lowest scoring college students that want to be teachers, and they are trained poorly, so of course our children go uneducated. So someone calls in and confronts that. Her daughter is a teacher and loves teaching but the constant discipline problems she is dealing with with NO support from parents or admin is driving her out of the field. His response? Well, if the teacher were properly trained to be super engaging and really keep the kids attention and MAKE them WANT to learn then there wouldn’t be any problems. The teacher just needs to try harder.

At that point I stopped listening because my head was exploding with all manner of curse words and the 3 youngest were in the car with me. I cannot believe he actually believes that if a teacher was just engaging enough, all our problems with no parental interest or support and difficult discipline issues would be solved. If I’m remembering right, for about 100 years most kids were taught in a small school where there was one book for each subject that the teacher read from while the children were expected to listen quietly. There was no AV equipment, no unit studies, no internet interactive sites, not really even any effort to be engaging and make the kids want to learn. We expected them to learn anyway. And they DID. That’s the really amazing part, some of our best thinkers were guys who just read and thought a lot. Nobody *made* them want it, they did it because they wanted it for themselves.

It’s not that I think teaching on level and trying to be relevant and engaging are bad. I do projects, we use interactive sites at times, we watch films. But that is not where the bulk of learning is done. The bulk of their learning comes from reading, writing, thinking, and application. Nothing fancy.

Of course this is coming from a man who when asked about Bill Jr as a kid, his response was along the lines of: He was really curious and interested in everything. He loved to read. That’s really unusual.

If he really believes that it’s unusual for kids to be curious, interested and either read or be read to, well, I must have the most unusual family on earth. All 8 fit that description. ALL 8. To varying degrees, but all 8.

I do believe teachers need more pay, more respect, more of whatever they ask for really, but I would really love to hear at least someone place the blame where it belongs, on the families who don't put value on education.

Not Me Monday

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

So this week I didn't give my baby girl a cookie just because she cried that everyone else got one. That one little tear (can you see it?) didn't effect me at all, I'm immune to it after all these years.

I also didn't laugh when her big brother put her on his shoulders and she spit up down his neck into his shirt and then she wiped her mouth on his hair.

I didn't let my laundry pile up until we had no underwear and it took me 20 minutes to find a pair of pants for each boy in order to go to church. I, of course, lay out all our clothing the night before, and do one load a day, every day.

I didn't leave the planning of school off until this morning and then spend most of the day wondering where all our books were. I have a plan I made in August and we have stuck to it. I lay my stuff out for the week on Sunday night, that's what I do.

I did NOT tell my children that if they are going to lock each in the closets, they must at LEAST let the person in there out when they say I want out.

I also did not walk around the house talking to myself about how no one ever puts anything back where it belongs, never, and if they did that I would fall down in a dead faint and blog it immediately WITH pictures, because it would be a miracle and someone should document miracles. I would never be that passive aggressive, I tell my children clearly what I need and how I feel.

That's about all I didn't do, how about you?

Not me monday

So here I am Not Me-ing again. Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

I did not spend countless hours retouching photos for my Facebook account. I would never spend that much time refining my memories instead of making them and then waiting for people who see them all the time to comment.

I did not try and stay asleep while one of my 7yos was at the side of my bed hacking his lungs out. I sprang out of bed with the quickness and compassion of Florence Nightingale, with my make up on too, and then since it was 6am,

I didn't go back to bed and make my husband get up with the kids, who proceeded to let them scrounge for whatever breakfast items they could find. Nope, I got up and made a wonderful breakfast for the kids while whistling.

I don't spend my Friday nights messing around on my laptop, next to my husband on his laptop, while the children watch "Clone Wars". We sit in front of a fire sipping tea and do read alouds from classic literature.

I didn't say "get off your brother's head" so many times this week, I feel like I'm saying it in my sleep.

I did not sing "I'm a Sweet Transvestite" from Rocky Horror when my very manly husband came back from the dr with a report of low testosterone (Test-toss-ter-oni, the real San Fransisco Treat, quick what sitcom?). I lovingly built him up.

What didn't you do this week?

Not me monday

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

Yeah yeah, it's Tuesday...so sue me.

This is s a fun little therapy session. You go through your last week or so and tell all the things you absolutely did NOT do.

I did NOT let my kids watch endless hours of television because I'm tired with being up a sick child. Homeschool mommies don't do that.

I did NOT spend Valentines day eating take out from a drive through in front of Mama Mia with my husband over at our babysitters empty apartment(cause they were babysitting for us!). Normal people make reservations and get dressed up and fight crowds instead of eating totally yummy Mi Casita and watching a fun movie in jeans and t-shirts.

I do NOT sit around and quote Word Girl and Spongebob with my kids. Especially not the last one. No self respecting Christian mommy would let their kids watch that.

I did NOT spend Friday night running to Walmart to get these stuffed animals and some candy for my kids Valentines day. I was ready early this year, having planned weeks in advance just like Kate from Jon and Kate plus 8(stop laughing!!)
I most assuredly did NOT laugh so hard I had to start it over and then until I cried at(do not listen to this in front of children, seriously) this. No self respecting Christian would find anything that uses the f word that many times that funny.

There ya go, what I haven't been doing.

Hubba Hubba

This is the kinda guy I could swoon for:

Watch more SpikedHumor videos on AOL Video

March for Life

I'm not usually very outspoken on politics or controversial legal issues, at least on the net, but this is an issue that is personal for me. *thanks to Floyd at Threedonia.com for the link from his site*


Because of this country's view on life, when my daughter died at 16 weeks gestation in 2000, my husband and I were not only denied the option to see her after birth, but had to fight the hospital to get access to her body later. She was called products of conception, medical waste and we were told she had been disposed of. Thank God she was not and we did eventually get to see her and were given permission to have her cremated with dignity. " You want a funeral home to pick up the medical waste removed from your body?" was the question. Yes, we want a funeral home to pick up our daughter. Even though we did get to see her, she was in a small jar with formaldehyde, so I never did get to kiss her good-bye. But she was fully formed, perfect in every way. She was even smiling.

I understand that there are extenuating circumstances that make abortion palatable, or even necessary (in ectopic pregnancies for instance). I counsel parents who have chosen to interrupt a pregnancy when faced with the choice of one hour of life with their child or wait for stillbirth. I have grieved with parents who believe with all their hearts that the choice they made was for the comfort of their child and would give anything to have them here. But the vast majority of abortions are not performed in these cases, they are performed because a woman believes that death for the child would be better than parenting for her. And because of these women, my child was disrespected. After all, we cannot believe it is a child when it dies naturally and not believe it when someone doesn't want it. We want to. We want to believe we are big enough to have both in our minds, but we aren't. Not most of us. Not me, and apparently not the hospital I had Rose at. I believe my much wanted baby was just as much a baby as a child who was not wanted. They believed she was medical waste, just like the abortion they performed earlier that day.

I don't have any pictures of my sweet girl, but I do have pictures of her brother, who also died at almost the same gestation 2 years later. These are fairly graphic, but I believe they say more about the humanity of these children than words ever could.




Please pray for those marching today. Please pray for President Obama as he considers what to do with the FOCA . Please pray his heart will be changed toward the unborn and that life can be respected in this country.