Memories of Another Sort...

We lost you in May...
Five years ago.

You are a precious little life that cannot,
nay, will not
be forgotten.

You are my son.
I love you dearly. I miss you still.

You are with Jesus.
I look forward to the day I will hold you in my arms.

Until then, baby, know I love you!!

Love,
Mommy

To read more about baby Issac, read "Memorial Day" by clicking here

Memorial Day

Take some time this weekend to remember the brave men and women who are fighting for our country, even now, in Iraq, and other places. If it were not for them we might not be a free country!**********************************

Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day, is a day of remembrance for those who have died in our nation's service.

Memorial Day was officially proclaimed on 5 May 1868 by General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, in his General Order No. 11, and was first observed on 30 May 1868, when flowers were placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery. The first state to officially recognize the holiday was New York in 1873. By 1890 it was recognized by all of the northern states. The South refused to acknowledge the day, honoring their dead on separate days until after World War I (when the holiday changed from honoring just those who died fighting in the Civil War to honoring Americans who died fighting in any war). It is now celebrated in almost every State on the last Monday in May (passed by Congress with the National Holiday Act of 1971 (P.L. 90 - 363) to ensure a three day weekend for Federal holidays), though several southern states have an additional separate day for honoring the Confederate war dead: January 19 in Texas, April 26 in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi; May 10 in South Carolina; and June 3 (Jefferson Davis' birthday) in Louisiana and Tennessee.

Traditional observance of Memorial day has diminished over the years. Many Americans nowadays have forgotten the meaning and traditions of Memorial Day. At many cemeteries, the graves of the fallen are increasingly ignored, neglected. Most people no longer remember the proper flag etiquette for the day. While there are towns and cities that still hold Memorial Day parades, many have not held a parade in decades. Some people think the day is for honoring any and all dead, and not just those fallen in service to our country.

But what may be needed to return the solemn, and even sacred, spirit back to Memorial Day is for a return to its traditional day of observance. Many feel that when Congress made the day into a three-day weekend in with the National Holiday Act of 1971, it made it all the easier for people to be distracted from the spirit and meaning of the day. As the VFW stated in its 2002 Memorial Day address: "Changing the date merely to create three-day weekends has undermined the very meaning of the day. No doubt, this has contributed greatly to the general public's nonchalant observance of Memorial Day."

Previous excerpt taken from the following website...there is more there...go check it out!!
http://www.usmemorialday.org/backgrnd.html

Thursday Thirteen

Thirteen Things that I did in the last Week!! I have... 1. Convinced a family to stay at our school. 2. tucked my children into bed. 3. Given my baby a back-rub and cough medicine. 4. Helped my daughter with her homework. 5. Taken my baby to the doctor. 6. Given her a breathing treatment every night. 7. Paid $40 for the convenience of once a day antibiotics. 8. Stayed home from work to keep my daughter company while she fought a fever. 9. Taken my godson to his OT appointment. 10. Graded a million and one papers (with only a million left to grade!). 11. Celebrated my middle daughter's SEVENTH birthday by getting her ears pierced. 12. Gone to a fabulous women's conference on Saturday. 13. Paid $4 for a Frappaccino and enjoyed every penny's worth. Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!


The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

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...the shirt explains it all!!!

  

Noise with dirt on it.

That's how someone described little boys.

It's so true.

My son has been dealing with issues with his ears for about a year now. I thought he was very prone to swimmers ear as his pain was mostly at night after his shower or after he had been swimming. He would tell me his ear hurt and I would give him some tylenol and send him to bed with a promise of "if it still hurts in the morning we'll call the doctor." Well, about three weeks ago it did. Still hurt in the morning that is. And my son was in some pretty intense pain so I called the doctor. He declared it swimmer's ear (I knew that) and gave him some drops to relieve the pain. He also informed me that he had a rather large wax buildup in his ear and that they wanted to irrigate his ear and see if they could remove it. They tried to no avail and sent me home with instructions to come back in a week to try again. When we went back in a week there had been no softening of this wax buildup, it hadn't cleared up any, even with the drops that supposedly dissolve it...so I was given a referral to take Josiah to a specialist, an ENT, so they could vaccuum the ear out. (That so doesn't sound like fun to me!)

Well, being the skeptical mother that I am, I immediately called up all the friends I knew that either do the homeopathic thing or had suggestions for over the counter remedies for wax issues. I tried them all.

Finally, last night, as I was getting my dear son ready for bed and he asked for eardrops, I asked him if it still hurt. He told me no so I tried to look into his ear with a pen light and see if the build up was still there. It was so I laid him down in my lap and went after it. After a couple of tries I got it out...

Only it wasn't wax.

It was a piece of paper.

About the size of a cotton ball!

Now...if you are a parent you can imagine the questions going through my mind...How long has this been there? WHY did he put it there? WHY couldn't the doctor with his fancy little earlight TELL it was paper and not wax? Do I bother to keep the appointment with the ENT? WHY did he put paper in his ear? You get the idea.

I promptly called my mother on the phone and apologized for everytime I had stuck something wierd in my nose, ears, or mouth and asked her to PLEASE call off the curse! (You know...the one that goes something like, I hope you have kids who are just like you when you grow up....) We had a good laugh.

Boys...

Noise with dirt on it...

And things in their ears....

The Purpose...

I have been praying, well for almost a year now, that God would reveal to me what His plan is for me.

I'm in that season of life where nothing "fits."

I'm not talking about clothes either. Not that I wouldn't like to be a size or two smaller...maybe fit into those "skinny" pants again...but that's another rant for another day...that's not the kind of "fit" I'm talking about here.

I went back to work this year and I don't "fit" with my friends anymore, who are, for the most part, stay at home moms who homeschool. I still hang out with them. I still love them. I just don't have much in common with them these days. I miss being home with my kids, and while I like my job and find it rewarding, I just don't have a "career" mindset so I don't really "fit" at work either (although I have made a couple of special friends there). I'm so tired from working all day that my house is a disaster during the week so I'm not comfortable there, my car is lived in way too much so I'm not comfortable there, and my church is in "transition" so I'm really not comfortable there most of the time.

Has God ever stripped away all of your comfortable places, all at once? Did I mention my in-laws are moving to Oregon (their home was definitely one of my comfortable places...) <<>>

So for a year I have been pleading with God to explain to me what his plan is in all of this? Because I know he has one...and I know I'm dense enough to miss it for a really long time unless I pray about it a lot.

I got a glimpse this weekend.

I attended a Women of Virtue conference this morning. The keynote speaker was Tammy Maltby and can I just say, if you ever have the chance to hear her speak, to read her book, to see her television show...you should. She was awesome.

She talked about lifegiving. She spoke of pushing into other people's pain and bearing their burdens for them. That, and a few words of personal encouragement from a friend I attended with, popped on the light for me.

I have known from the beginning that God gave me my job. He handed it to me in a way that I could only know it was from Him. I just didn't know why.

Now I know. Feebly, with God working through me despite me, I have been able to give life at this school.

I am a parent of a child with ADHD, and a second child who is Bipolar. Because I am a teacher, I have been able to speak into the lives of countless parents who have children with these diagnoses, or symptoms. I have given them names of doctors, books to read, and practical ways to find solutions to the difficulties they face. I have also given them hope.

I think I may have been given a glimpse of my mission, my purpose, my calling.

I'm going to keep praying...will you join me?

Rain, Rain, won't you stay??

My friend, Heather, just posted on her blog (http://davesredhead.blogspot.com/) about the rain we got here last Tuesday...Needless to say rain in the month of May in Phoenix is a pretty rare occurrance. So what did I do? I took pictures of course!!!

Enjoy!!!

Rain, Rain, won't you stay??

 
 
  

Wordless Wednesday

  

Super Sunday

My favorite guest author appears once again:

We cannot reach dreams by ourselves
but together we will glow
like beautiful yellow stars
growing in the sky
who light up even the darkest of nights
with love

by Bethany Datria (age 10)

P.S. She dedicated this to her mom....awwwwwww....