Everything I learned in life, I learned from my Gerbils

Okay, the title is a lie. But I did learn something this week from them... Keep reading...

I had such a great Biblical visual for my kids (and self) this week that I had to share. The kids and I are reading Tell me the Secrets: Treasure for Eternity . Every story ends with a Bible verse(s). A few days ago 1 Peter 5:8,9 was the verse .:

Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.

It happened that the day that we read that verse was the day I brought my sweet baby gerbils home.

I have never had a gerbils before- and they are the sweetest, cutest little guys. They do not bite, nip or scratch. I love them. I also have cats- and while I wondered about the cat/gerbil combo, all my animals have always gotten along. Yes, we once had an accidental death but in the end, everyone finds a way to live together. But Oscar, our 8 month old kitten has different ideas. I have been a bit shocked to discover he is OBSESSED with finding a way to eat my gerbil babies.

Right now they are in my room so I can keep an eye on them (and keep them alive). At night we lock them in our closet and during the wee hours (when Henry likes to visit with me) I find Oscar sitting on our bed and staring at the door. Last night I heard him pawing at the closet door. If someone leaves the door open, he runs in and stares at them until he decides it is time to pounce on their cage. When I carry him out of the room, he looking over my shoulder the whole time, his body taunt, his eyes trained on the gerbils. And while I hate, hate, hate to compare my sweet (black!) kitten to Satan, the comparison is easy  This sleek black killing machine is just waiting for me to let up so he can finally  devour his hapless prey.

Yes, I do walk around like Gollum whispering "murderer"  to him throughout my day : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwyb7lE1Tr8 

And what of the gerbils you ask? Are they emotionally suffering from a cat sitting atop their cage every chance he gets? No, they are not. To be honest, they have yet to notice. They continue in their gerbil activities taking no notice to the lion seeking to devour them. And, in case you are thinking that gerbils must be the stupidest animals on the planet, prepare yourself for my next analogy. Cause I am starting to see that we, humans, are just like gerbils.   The Bible has clearly warned me to be mindful, to be careful, to be watchful. But oh, so often I am spinning along doing my human activities,  not noticing that I am about to fall into some great sin, once again prey to a hungry lion.

I am learning to watch for the stuff in life that leads me to sin- caffeine, alcohol, lack of sleep, sugar, etc and etc... and while none of these things are bad in the of themselves, if I know I am more likely to sin when I imbibe, should I not avoid them?

Sometimes Eating Crow tastes Good.

I’m Bbbaaaaccckkkk!!! After a long sleepless hiatus, I have been thinking it is time to re-engage my brain and start blogging. Nothing really SPECTACULAR has come to mind. A few angry retorts to the anit-breast feeding freaks have come to mind, maybe a post or two about the sanctity of life and America’s disinterest in that subject.

(sidebar: was talking to the guy running for state Senate on Sunday.  I asked him if he was prolife and he said that he was personally but he did not think it was the governments job to mandate such things and that everyone should be allowed to live their life how they want. I guess that everyone does not include the unborn.)

But today I had an experience that I want to share.  First, I will be honest. I have a bad attitude about Packs of Hope, a ministry at church. Packs of Hope are backpacks filled with necessities for kids that are suddenly removed from their homes and left with nothing.  Let me be clear, I am not against the child. I am against a government that takes the responsibility to remove a child and then leaves them with nothing. When I got my pack and opened it, I was even irked by one of the statements “This may be the only new clothes this child has ever received”. As a constant shopper of used clothing (I don’t even buy new for myself), this irked me as well.  It seems to insinuate that the child may have  been deprived by wearing used clothing. But this year I sucked it up and got two packs. Lori O “checked” me out and told me she heard that people sometimes got a discount at Walmart and Target if they showed the Packs of Hope certificate.

At my shopping trip at Target today, I found a few items, so at check-out I showed her my little piece of paper and ask her about the discount. She didn’t know (and like a good associate radioed to ask) but then she said “ When did they start this? “

 me (ignorant and barely paying attention),” I don’t know, a few years ago” 

Target girl, “Cause they didn’t have this when I went into foster care. “

Me (suddenly paying attention and already ashamed because of my bad attitude),” I am so sorry.”

And since nobody knew the answer to my question about the discount, she and I got a chance to chat while a few different people were radioed.  To be honest, I think she was so open because she looked at my kids and figured I had adopted and/or fostered and that I would get it. I did. She told me that she was “dropped off” at her foster home at midnight with nothing. She told me how she and one sibling were together but the other two siblings lived in another foster home. They were all together for one hour per week. I asked if she was ever reunited with her parents and she was reunited with her mom and eventually her mom got all four kids back. She told me she loved her foster family. They were still family, and the situation made her family bigger. And as you can imagine the exchange made me a little teary. I told her how happy for her I was that things worked out so well. I left and went home.

I don’t have a final verdict to give about foster care system and all of its many problems. And probably none of my bigger picture beliefs have changed. But right at the moment  that this young girl and I began our exchange about her PERSONAL experience in the foster care system, I felt that God was telling me to get over myself.  I needed to offer this tiny bit of help and use another platform to share my big picture ideals.

Mean People Suck

We are camping this weekend (well P and the kids are camping. I am going and hanging out with them during the day and coming home and sleeping in my bed). This afternoon, G and I decided to take a walk down the reservoir to play in the water.  He held the dog leash and I carried the play buckets. G ran ahead. We had not gotten it through his head yet not to cut through people campsites, and once again he ran through an RV site. It went a little badly. I was a ways back but I could see the dog pulling him over (over the metal picnic bench, ouch) and I could hear an adult yelling.  I could see G trying to regain control of the dog and I was trying to hurry myself to help. But waddling is not an efficient form of movement.
Still I hear an adult yelling.
When G makes it back to me, I asked him if someone was yelling at him. He told me "Yes, she was screaming for me to get out of her campsite."
Quickly, I wonder if I would be yelling at a child who had done the same thing. The obvious answer I come up with is no. I have yelled at my kids. I have probably yelled at your kids. But I would not yell at a stranger kid who lost control of his dog at my campsite.  While I am trying to decide if I should take my bad ass 8 month pregnant self over to confront her, she comes out and looks at me and raises her arms in a "What the heck" motion.
So I tell her calmly and without yelling (but with heavy snarkasm) what I think- "I apologize that my child acted like the 7 year old that he is, but it is not appropriate for you to yell at a child like that".  I am pretty sure that is all I said,  but l am 8 months pregnant.
We walked away.
This created a lot for G and I to talk about. I asked him if he was afraid. He told me that if he was still a "little kid that it would have made him cry" but that it did hurt his feelings. He told me it was "kinda weird" how I talked to the lady.  We played in the water for a bit and went back and he told P what happened. So we talked some more.
I figured out what he thought was weird about what I said. We teach our kids that to ignore mean people- G hit it on the head this afternoon when he said "someone being unkind to you does not mean that you have to be unkind back" and that it true. But I pointed out that she was not unkind to me, but to a child. P told him that it is okay to be firm with people. P pointed out to him that if it upset the mean lady so much that she could have come talked to me about it, but screaming at kids is not okay.
 (apparently P thought I handled it perfectly at the time and that Jesus would not go back there without kids and be "firm" a little more aggressively and/or light fire crackers under her trailer in the middle of the night)
I pointed out to G that that I did yell or call her name (he wanted examples- he came up with poopy head. Not really the name I was thinking when it happened). I wondered if I should have just kept my mouth shut but thought about it more and realized that my kids NEED to see me handle stressful aggressive situations calmly but firmly (there is that word again). While my kids need to learn to walk away, they also need to learn how to deal with bullies and how to stand up for someone being bullied especially when a much larger person is bullying someone who is smaller and weaker. This is one of the few times G has seen me handle conflict with a stranger and I think it is good for him to see that mommy doesn't yell, she doesn't call names but she does not let people abuse her or her family.

Untitled Thoughts

Yesterday morning we woke up to an email of a newspaper article about an old friend- he had committed a heinous crime, unwittingly but nonetheless, a crime that we could find no excuse for.  We have not spoken to this man for many years but it was someone in the past that we had seen everyday for many years.
I thought about his crime all day- and last night as I laid in bed, I could not help but imagine what he must be feeling. I am in no way excusing his behavior nor negating the pain of the victim but I realized that I had never empathized with the perpetrator end of crimes.
How does it feel to be in jail for an unknown amount of time, knowing that you have done a terrible terrible thing. I am not talking about the Ted Bundy criminals- I am speaking of people who in a moment choose to do something that will alter their lives forever in a extremely negative way. I told P that now I know how friends and family end up on news with shocked faces and words that sound like excuses but are really just more shock.
And jail is not the only punishment- How about our own conscience? Some crimes would be very difficult to live with- the guilt and shame- the feeling that one is unredeemable. Although this man is not a saint, I knew that at that moment he must just want to die, knowing what he did.
And I thought to myself- "What on earth do I tell this man?"
Then I realized.
We tell him about Jesus of course.
He knows that we are Christians.  But I think that will mean something new to him as he sits in jail, most likely isolated from most people who are disgusted by his crime.
So we are planning our letter to him (and trying to track him down). We might be the only people to tell him that there is redemption- that God can forgive him. And we can do that without excusing any of his behavior or sin. I realized this morning what a beautiful relationship Christianity is- As humans there is a limit to our forgiveness to one another. Certain acts/ sins cause us to "write a person off" in our brain. That is not true with God. We are all black hearted sinners in his eyes and he loves each of us. There is no sin too big for God to redeem, and as I thought this, I realized that meant that there was no sinner so sinful that I should not share God's redeeming love with them.
I guess this is how people end up in prison ministry.

Prop 62- Some thoughts....

“The time is always right to do what is right. ” Martin Luther King Jr

I had an interesting conversation a few weeks back with a woman who will remain nameless (for her privacy and because i cannot remember her name). I was discussing Amendment 62, Colorado's Personhood Amendment and how excited I was to see it on the ballot (And I wanted some yard signs!). This person's answer shocked me. (Yes, I know that happens to me often, but without my low shock factor, what would I blog about?)

I was told that she would not be voting in favor of Prop 62 because Colorado Right to Life is run by a bunch of crazies that were excommunicated from National Right to Life (She is sending them a message) AND that now was not a good time for this amendment because of the current Supreme Court AND that failure was guaranteed and who wants to put your name on that. According to this woman, she is not the only Pro-life person that feels this way. All the “lawyers” and other politically savvy people in the pro-life community feel this way as well...

Since I was raised to be polite to my elders, I very politely disagreed. I would research this issue and silently planned my blog attack.

 I did look for a reasonable disagreement (By reasonable, I was seeking a pro-life argument against the Personhood amendment. Naturally there are lots of pro choice arguments) and I spoke with Chicken Scratch Counsel. According to Counsel 

“ The type of law they are trying to pass is probably the best argument for getting abortion outlawed, and I will still vote for it, but I don't think they've quite got the language to a point that it will withstand challenge.”

 I guess laws are harder to write than non-lawyer/ non politicians may think.

Digression: Don't you ever wonder if lawyers write lawyer speak so that you have hire other lawyers to interpret lawyer speak therefore perpetuating the profession?

Moving on... What bothered me the most about the conversation with aforementioned woman was the fact that this person was willing to vote against something she agreed with to “send a message” and because she thought it was politically unwise. It is not the “right time” for an amendment to try and save the lives of unborn children.

Lots of situations with unfavorable surrounding circumstances came to mind.

**Moses stood in front of the Red Sea and told the people of Israel to Be Still! God will fight for you! (Exodus 14:14). Do you think as they stood there that any of them IMAGINED that God would part the water for them? 

**Gideon and only 300 men took the on the fierce Midianites. They carried jars, trumpets, and torches- Judges 7

**Daniel survived the night in a cave with hungry lions who probably very much liked the taste of human.... (Daniel 6)

**Martin Luther changed Christendom with a piece of paper nailed to a door.

**William Wilberforce changed the free world by believing that every man should be free. He never gave up until slavery was abolished in England! 

**Martin Luther King Jr. - One of the greatest movements in our country (in my opinion) was the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott. People worked together and boycotted the racially segregated buses for 381 days. They did not give up until the law was changed and people could sit wherever they wanted to on a city bus. 

All of these men fought for what seemed impossible and most unlikely. And yes, it seems unlikely that Prop 62 will pass. The last time we voted, only 25% of people voted in favor of it. And if it does pass, it is likely to be challenged as the contraception portion of it (if not more portions) are vaguely worded and unclear. 

But does that matter? If I believe life begins at conception can I vote any differently? I think Christians should be vocal. I think we should speak up for what we feel God wants us to speak up about. I do not think that we should play the political game to the extent that we are willing to vote against something that we believe in because of timing. 

I am what many snarkily referred to as a single issue voter. I have never voted for a candidate that is not pro-life, and I vote in favor of any proportions that threaten the legality of abortion. Abortion is the leading cause of death of human beings in our country- THE LEADING CAUSE OF DEATH. That makes “Pink Awareness” seem a little silly, doesn't it. 

I started this post over a month. I have agonized a lot about it. This is a difficult issue to talk about because I have friends and family members that have had abortions and I have no desire to rub their noses in it. I do not need to make another person feel guilty of their sin; I have my own sin to feel guilty about. But I realized that my silence is starting to make me complicit. And when I am complicit, I become as guilty as those who commit the act. So this is my first step in my speaking out on behalf of the unborn- More to follow.

Happy Birthday Gideon!

"But Lord", asked Gideon "How can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manessah, and I am the least in my family. "

The Lord answered, "I will be with you and you will strike down all the Midianites together" Gideon 6:15&16

In about 4 minutes, my son will officially be six years old. On October 24, 2004 our son, Gideon Phillip Butler was born at 1:51pm. He was at  29 weeks, 2 days gestational age. The picture you see above is his first picture, taken minutes after he was born.

To be honest, it was a traumatizing day. They announced at about 10:30am that they would be delivering him early...at about 5:30pm (they wanted my stomach empty). My liver was starting to fail.  Percy had gone to church so I was by myself, and the doctor came into explain the procedure to me. While he was explaining, Gideon's heart rate tanked and the doctor told me if it did that again, they were going to deliver now. It did it again two minutes later and they started to prep me for the surgery immediately. They had me ready in about 30 minutes and were basically wheeling me out by the time Percy arrived. I asked the nurse if Gideon would be breathing when he was delivered and they said that if he wasn't, they would resuscitate him.

For those of you who have had a C-section, you know that it takes some time.  I have no idea how long it took to get me ready to deliver him. I was staring at the wall praying. The nurse told Percy to get the camera ready- and we heard this little cry- but there was a cry. I asked the doctor if that was the baby- and she said the words I will never forget- "He is scrawny but feisty!" Gideon weighed 2 pounds, 1.8 ounces and he was about 14 inches long. I had never seen a baby that small but of course I have since learned that babies smaller and earlier are born, survive and thrive.(Think of that when you are voting in 2 weeks)

He spent 58 days in the NICU- that time in my life is a blur. I was pumping at night, pumping during the day and driving back and forth between my house and Swedish 2 times per day. Gideon went home at 5.5 pounds on Christmas Eve eve.

Clearly I cannot blog about his birth every year but this year has been a little special. When a baby is born that tiny, there are many immediate worries that you have but you also worry about the future.

Is your child going to be normal ? 

(whatever that is)

We made it through many hurdles, and for me, Kindergarten has been the last "preemie" one. With his late speech I worried so much that he would not be able to keep up academically or that he would be somehow different from the other kids.

But that has not been the case.

He is an average little boy, which is exactly what we had hoped for him. We named him Gideon after Gideon in the book of Judges. Look it up in your Bible, but in essence God sent Gideon to fight a fierce people with only 300 men. It took a tremendous amount of faith for Gideon to step up and be a leader. He was the least of his clan, he was even the least of his family. Yet God chose him. The world saw something ordinary because they only looked externally. God could see Gideon's heart and knew His own plan. Together that was something extraordinary.

We chose Gideon's name as an act of faith. We believed that as dire as the situation seemed at the moment of his birth, that God was in the business of doing remarkable acts of healing and redemption. We also chose it to remind our son Gideon to have faith and courage even when the odds seem completely against him. For although I wrote that we wished for an average little boy, I should have explained further. Internally, we wish for our boy to grow to be strong and mighty in his love for God. We wish for him to defend the powerless, the weak, the poor, the orphan, and the oppressed.  We can already seen an inkling of his relationship with Jesus.  I love to watch his head bow and ask Jesus to forgive him for a sin he has committed. I loved it when he understood that Jesus had the power to raise our dead chickens from the grave. (Digression- We believe that Jesus does have the power to raise the chickens from dead and reattach their heads, but explained that He would not be doing so. And for some reason it always makes us chuckle a little about the reattaching of the heads) I love our conversations about what WE DO that shows Jesus that we love him. I love it that my son wants to show Jesus that he loves him.

Gideon, we are so proud of you. When I spoke with your teachers and they told me how polite you are,how hard you try and what a good work ethic you have, my heart almost burst. It is those moments that make all the other crazy days of the year worth it.

Happy Birthday, we love you.

** This picture is a self portrait. Gideon took it yesterday, October 23, 2010.

Why Socialism Does Not Work.

Bear with me. You may not at first identify this as a problem of socialism. 

I got a phone call from the school on Friday that Gideon had collided with a child and he had a profusely bleeding bloody nose. I needed to come and get him. I agreed to come and get him but explained to the office secretary that he commonly had bloody noses that were very scary and not to worry.

His nose was very bloody, but I have probably seen worse. Recognizing that it is not reasonable for him to be sent home every time he had a bloody nose, I set about this morning to collect the necessary paperwork to allow him to keep a little kit of supplies at school to help him handle his bloody nose. 

Ideally he needs a plastic bag with a few rags, q-tips, some sort of moisturizer gel, and maybe a saline wash. Ideally this needs to be done in the bathroom hanging over a sink to minimize the blood splatter on clothing. Gideon “nose” how to do this. (Sorry I could not stop myself). He does not even wake me up at night anymore if his nose bleeds. He gets his own towel (usually a nice white one) and hangs over the sink until it stops bleeding. He has been doing his own saline rinses for the past two years and every child knows how to stick a q-tip up their nose. 

I stopped by the office this morning to get the form. The office secretary recommendation is that she keep the medication because if it was in his bag he might “show it to someone” or “squirt himself in the eye”. Okay- that could happen. Although I have found that children with chronic problems are generally more responsible with their medication because they have to be. I take the form home and read it over.

The forms refers to the “medication” and that the only "the dose listed on the instructions can be used." Well... last time I checked, Vaseline had no dosage listed, nor does a Q-tip box include instructions on how to stick one up a nose. It is frustrating. I have not decided how I will deal with this, although in the end, I will probably have to make a special plan with the school for dealing with my son's benign nose bleeds. 

Now to the socialist aspect.  A public school is a socialist entity by nature. Laws abound to make education “fair” to all the attend the school, but nonetheless, it is the schools goal to create a collective environment. All children need to be treated the same in order to make the system work. To keep all the children safe, the child with chapped lips cannot bring chapstick (without a doctors note) because he might share chapstick and spread a cold sore. I am sure you have heard of the laws now protecting asthmatics. Schools do not like children with asthma to carry their inhaler in their pockets. They may sell it or share it with others. So rather than teach children not to take others medication (and God forbid, let children bear the consequences of sharing medication) they try to make it a rule that a child cannot carry an inhaler. This does not work well because some people have bad enough asthma that they need an inhaler NOW! when they have an asthma attack. Some kids got very sick from this and they had to change the laws to allow kids to carry an inhaler with them. Colorado has this law. I actually keep asthma medication at Gideon's school but I did not have him self administer because I know that he needs help with it. I also know that he does not need help with a bloody nose. See how that works? As an individual, I am able to make decision based on my child's needs. I only had to take into account what I know about my child. It does not matter is Johnny has been using his inhaler unattended since he was three or that Mary would eat the tube of Vaseline if she had it in her backpack. I need only know what my child is capable of doing.

The socialist entity “the school” cannot function that way. All decisions are made while trying the take every member into account. But it cannot serve all of its members well because of that. The individual does not function this way. I evaluate what Gideon needs, and only what he needs. I do not take into account the medical needs of other asthmatics/ bloody nosed kids, their mothers do.

Ultimately I understand that this issue of the bloody noses does not matter too much. I am a SAHM, I can deal with them as they come. But I invite you to look at this microcosm example of 400 kids in a school and the handling of individual needs and expand it to millions of Americans and socialized medicine. 

Socialized medicine will encompass the needs of the “normal” .What are you going to do if you and your family do not fall under “normal” . Do you think that the government is going to violate protocol for you? Or do you think that you are going to be looking at a form like the one that I have in my hand? The form that does not even apply to the circumstances that I am dealing with BUT it is the ONLY form. 

Some of you may find this selfish; it is really not. I want to make decisions for my kid/ my family. I want you to be able to do the same. To return to back to my original analogy of the school system- I do not think that I know what is best for the other kids at Gideons school. If a child has special needs, I want his mother to make able to make a plan outside of the norm for her child as well. 

I will be honest. I hate it that people suffer because they cannot afford health insurance. I hate it that insurance companies refuse to insure the very people who need it the most. I wish that socialized medicine could work. But when I honestly evaluate our government I know that the government run health care is going to make people suffer. 

Someone please correct me if I am wrong, the public school system is our country's longest running socialized program, and it is full of problems. But parents can opt out. The new healthcare plan is going to effect everyone, and there will not be a way to opt out. Think of that in November. 

Is it reasonable to think that our government is going to run more efficiently/ more fairly the more complicated it gets?