A Good Read for A Confused Woman Like Me...

By virtue of being a health care referral haven (or so I hope!) for children with severe mental illness, I think I have more than the average amount of personal experience interacting with children with extreme behavioral problems. I love this tremendously challenging part of my job; I am forever striving to care kindly and humanely for all children, even those with little or no ability to cooperate for even a seemingly simple toothbrushing.  Every day I come to my job hoping to be gentler, smarter and more efficient than the day before. They do call it practice, as Jeremy often says after a bumpy day.

When a tremendously difficult child comes to see me for dental work, I almost always end the appointment with a silent prayer for their families...something like this always works:

Our father,

Who art in heaven,

Hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come,

Thy will be done,

On earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread,

And forgive us our trespasses,

As we forgive those who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation,

But deliver us from evil.

Amen.

Dear Heavenly Father please bless this child and his family as they go about their day today. Please give them comfort and rest as they face the challenges ahead of them. In Jesus' name I pray.

I have the easy job -- my work is generally done within minutes -- but so many families spend day after day struggling with their child's mental disability. And to this there is no respite--often problems only multiply as children become adults. These families need our prayers, support and kindness alone...their job is far difficult enough without our added unsolicited advice. Think of this the next time you outwardly or inwardly judge a parent with a disobedient child at the store.

I have thought and cried and prayed about the recent tragedy in Connecticut. I have tried to ignore the news and the constant onslaught of invasive media coverage of a suffering community and the families it houses. I have kept my mouth shut when it has come to any arguments about gun control and the like, partly out of good common sensitivity owed to those impacted most by this tragedy, but also because I wasn't quite sure how to express how I felt.

What really is the problem here? 

Then, despite my efforts to ignore the news, the facebook feed, the photos, the print media, I fortunately stumbled upon this article. Its truly insightful read. Click now, you won't regret it.

Do I still feel saddened and scared for our world? Yes. But being able to define how you feel about an event that may spark the grand controversy for our time is surely a good thing.

And now I pray again for all people affected by the mental illness of a loved one or a total stranger.

St. Nicholas Comes to 7074 Bluffpoint

This is a horrible picture.

I really, REALLY need to take some type of entry level photography class. All I want for Christmas is to know how to take pictures in low light...sigh.

At any rate, it seems St. Nicholas filled our stockings once again. From left to right, or descending order, whichever tickles your fancy:

Mommy received heather gray leggings, nail polish and dark chocolate.

James received a new "big boy" outfit and socks (since he got moved up at daycare and per his father "The babies in the new room are wearing real clothes--not sleepers--and WALKING! He's not ready for that!"), some bath toys and the classic ring stacker that even I remember from childhood.

Peanut received two containers of wet dog food, which will surely give her the squirts. She should have gotten a lump of coal because she has been full of accidents lately just with her typical kibble.

Daddy received OSU jogging pants, pistachios, Nutella and some Christmas candy.

We are happy happy happy to see Old St. Nick.

When we were kids, we would often leave our Christmas lists in our stockings and St. Nick would deliver them safely to Santa. My mother handmade her daughters' stockings. Like, by hand. My older sister Kelly's pictured a snowman, replete with snowflake sequins and metallic thread piping the picture outlines.  Kristin's depicted an ELABORATE Christmas scene--children witnessing Santa scooting down a banister into the living room. All in hand sewn cross stitch. Beautiful french knots on the girl child's night cap. (To this day Mom does all the french knots in older sister Kelly's cross stitch. Kelly's work is pretty good, too.) Regarding Kristin's stocking, I think the story goes that mom began sewing this stocking when Kelly was born, but it was so elaborate that she didn't finish it until Kristin...nine years later. It really is a work of art.

My stocking was simple in comparison. A large cross stitch Santa waving as he sunk into a chimney.
So simple, in fact, that my first grade year I was pretty sad of its lack of bling. Some things never change.

However, that year, St. Nick left a nice note in my stocking his special night, letting me know that he would be sure to deliver my list safely to Santa, who in fact, loved my stocking the best of all.

Changing the Layout, Gulp

If you hadn't noticed, the layout of Bloggie has changed. I am using the Blogger App a lot to update, and the pictures were never formatting correctly. (#firstworldproblems) You couldn't even appreciate litte Miranda's Christmas jammies before! So goodbye to primary colors and right angles and hello to trippy paisley and inviting orange!

Now if I can only get the widgets to format correctly...

Two Turtle Doves

Freedom From Want Part II

My version. :)
May everyone (Democrats included) have a wonderful, satisfying, abundant Thanksgiving dinner this year.

Freedom From Want Part I

Norman Rockwell's version.

30 Thankful Things

Lots of my pals on Facebook are doing this "30 Days of Thankful" challenge.  I am a little late, so I'm going to try and pound out thirty all at once, right now. I will tell you at the end of the post how long that took me to come up with all of them.

Ready.

Set.

GO!

1. Jeremy. He is an amazing father and a thoughtful husband. He is the calm, kind and patient to my distracted, flaky and flighty.
2. Faithful for my faith in Jesus Christ and our heavenly Father. Need I say more?
3. Reliable transportation
4. Healthy baby who is pretty mellow most of the time
5. Not one, but technically three jobs that I love. (does that count as three thankful things?)
6. Two-part harmony. I love two-part harmony, especially in country songs. See: Tim McGraw's "Angry All the Time" and anything by Big and Rich.
7. Warm things like down comforters
8. Soft things like rabbit fur vests.
9. Peanut!
10. The fact I don't have any food allergies.
11. My family's freedom from want. We don't need to have a grocery budget. Although maybe we should.
12. I am not that big of a Browns fan. Heaven help those that are.
13. I have been blessed to have several amazing female role models. In no particular order: my mother (who does it all and looks good doing it...always smiling) my older sister Kelly (who is busy as a bee and complains even less than my mother, if that's even possible) my friend Megann, (who manages to to work full time in an incredibly demanding professional job and simultaneously is a wonderful wife and mother and also finds time to stamp on a regular basis), and also my friend and spiritual mentor Deb Splaingard (such a wise woman, I was blessed the day she came into my life!)
14. Baby bath time and delicious slippery roly-poly babies
15. My ability to help children and families in a small way during my day as a pediatric dentist.
16. When I was in high school I was encouraged to have a real job. I worked at a convenience store. I had to work with a lot of different types of people, and lots of interesting people spend time at gas stations and convenience stores. That prepared me well for my current place in life.
17. Right now, I'm digging our church, Linworth Baptist, and the new friends we have found there
18. I am thankful that I have all of my Thanksgiving grocery shopping done already.
19. I am thankful that I have some of my Christmas shopping and decorating done.
20. I am thankful to have a mother that has an unreasonably busy personality. She is such a doer. Said mom helped me decorate my foyer for Christmas last week...I kind of wanted to wait, but she was all, "No, lets do it now, we have the time." I'm 99% sure I would have never gotten the decorations up at all had we not done it then.
21. I am thankful I have two days off -- although I make up for them evenings and Saturdays. Having two weekdays to grocery shop, buy diapers, wash cars, saves us so much weekend time. Also its wonderful spending days with James while he is young.
22. I am thankful for our son's daycare, Northwest Christian Child Care. They ladies in James' room are  so friendly, so helpful, and also have done a wonderful job. I know James would not be the sweet little soul that he is were it not for their input.
23. I am thankful that I can cook. I love cooking nice meals for my husband, family and friends.
24. I am thankful that my father had a great work ethic. I am thankful that he spent much of his life coaching, giving away his spare time to help improve the lives of kids in our town.
25. I am thankful I grew up in Fort Loramie, land of good stewardship and all things Catholic, Republican, hard-working, and cautious. It was and is a great place to live and grow.
26. USA! USA! USA!
27. I am thankful for my bible study, Bible Study Fellowship. I have learned so much about the bible, and met wonderful women along the way.
28. I love our neighbors and neighborhood. Our neighbors to the east, Mike and Jackie Flowers, pretty much are the best neighbors you could ask for. They are the type of folks who roll down the window and say hello at 7:00am, instead of just waving. We are the young folks on the block, and people are generally so interested in James and how we are doing.
29. I am thankful we decided to become parents. I won't lie, we weren't 100% sure that we were going to love this experience, but we figured we liked the idea of children enough that we should give it a shot. Frankly, its the best decision we ever made.

30. Our little James.
31. (why not!) My blog. Thank you Kelly for encouraging me to get it back in action.

(That took me about an hour, with a small hiatus for diaper blowout and subsequent bath)