Very good articles about 'birth rape' or traumatic birth. I think these feelings hit home for so many women, yet we can't say how we feel because we seem crazy. After all, we have a healthy baby...what else should we hope for?

http://birthrape.wordpress.com/2008/04/04/not-a-happy-birthday/

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/127116/birth_trauma_can_cause_women_to_develope.html?cat=52

Please read this if you know someone who is angry about her birth and you can't understand why. She is not crazy.

If you've had a traumatic birth experience, please comment or email me. I found a great blog post about the stages of healing after a traumatic birth. However, due to a very graphic picture on the blog, I will not post the link in public. If you would like to avoid the picture for purity reasons, I can email the text of the blog post to you.

It's Friday already?  I almost forgot!!!!

Pop on over to Shereen's blog and see what others have been up to for crafties...

"WAITING FOR HIM" blog

And before I go on... just a friendly reminder to enter my contest!!

CONTEST LINK

OK...I mostly just knit this week!  My week was consumed with lots of random things and we went to visit my niece mid week, so I never once sat down at my sewing machine!!  I am having some slight withdrawals, but nothing a little sewing can't cure maybe tomorrow :)

I finally knit a longie, hat & sock set I am making for my friend, Katherine!  I can't wait to see her little guy, Luka, in it!!!

(I had finished the longies and socks and posted them last week... but knit the hat this week)

This is my daughter's doll modeling the cute hat.  I had to turn up the brim because this baby has a small head! haha

And this is the complete set...

And I wanted to make some fun hats for my SIL's sister, Debra, who is undergoing chemo.  (please pray for healing for her!!!)

You can read a bit about her on my brothers missionary blog.  She was in Costa Rica, at the same language school as my brother and SIL, when she found out she had cancer.

Blog Post About Debra Leaving Costa Rica

She may have her hair back by the end of the year, but these will help her have something to keep her warm during the cool months!  (She has a beautiful wig that she wears when she's out and about and she looks SO beautiful wearing it!!!)

Since she told me she was one of the "tiny head people" haha I tried it on my middle son to see how it fit him...

looks pretty darn cute! (and I actually tried it on myself and it fits well!  I am also one of the THP :)

I used this pattern INSIDE OUT CHEMO CAP and am really happy with how it turned out!!  I can't wait to give it to her!!  If it fits and she likes it, I will make her another one!

That's what I've been up to!  Now I'll just post a couple little pix...

The other day my youngest fell asleep with one of our kittens.  It's hard to see "Caspian", but he's right there snoozin' with "E" and they were both stretched right out and SO comfy!

This is my goldfish plant!  My Mom gave me a rooted piece of hers a few years ago and it never grew any "goldfish".  THIS YEAR though... it has grown a bunch!  And then once the older ones die... there are more in their place!!!  I love it!!!

When we visited my niece this week, the kids loved the chalk art in her driveway!  They just HAD to go out and add to the "hands" and "feet" and then they got some good pix for me!

I love the little hands!!!

And I had taken some time off from the "index card" chores due to just getting overwhelmed with trying to keep a routine during the busy summer!  I will start it right back up as soon as we start schooling again!

Anyway... Sunday morning (after we had held my nieces bday party here on Sat.) my oldest son said "what are the chores in the chore envelopes?"

Hm.  I told him I didn't put any chores in.  I cracked up when I read each child's TWO chores...

#1 Build a rocket ship

#2 Star in a Hollywood Movie

#3 Become an Entrapraneur

#4 Discover Cold Fusion

#5 Locate the memory center of the brain

#6 Discover new lands

#7 Discover a new solar system

and #8 Discover a new species that is previously undiscovered

I knew RIGHT off that my niece's husband must be behind it!!  I was right :)

Thanks for the laughs, Nate :)

That's all for now!! 

:) Bridge

This is my first time doing Friday Show and Tell and I am excited about joining in.  I am going to show how I control the toys in our home.  This new system is only a month old in my home and it is working great.  We don't have a play room or family room so toys were stored wherever I could find a spot. We used to keep toys all over the place.  You had to walk all over to put things away.  It really wasn't working.  So I started exploring how others did it and discovered some people use a toy closet. We have a strange little area in our kitchen that really isn't big enough for a table and always seemed like wasted space.  I decided to turn it into our toy "closet". 

The new toy "closet".  We used our old computer cabinet and old tubs from the basement.

The inside of the old computer cabinet.  I managed to squeeze in all the toy tools, legos, play food, technics, brio track and trains, marbles and tubes, doll house furniture, playmobile, army men, puppets, and bey blades (spinning tops game).  I still need to finish labeling everything.

Along the floor is tubs of blocks, Lincoln Logs, musical instruments, figurines and the kids matchbox car mountain.   When they want something, they get the tub out and then bring it all back in the same tub when they are done.  So far they are doing a great job returning everything.

This is our table time cabinet (old china cabinet).  The kids can get anything our of here and play with it at the dining room table.  This part of the system has been around for a long time.  In here we have; Mr. Potato head, light bright, playdough, money play, puzzles, coloring books and sticker books, crayons, markers, pencils, and lots of small games or games one can play by oneself.

There are still some toys in the kids rooms.  However, those toys are supposed to stay in their rooms.  In their rooms are dolls, our rather large Fisher Price village, dress up and the My Little Pony collection.  We also have alot of games, family puzzles, and art supplies in two closets that the kids can not get into by themselves.  I am so pleased with how this new system is working.  It is about time my home does not look like a toy store all the time. 

To see more show and tell Friday entries, go to Canadagirl .

Blessings,

Dawn

Check out this article about a New Zealand judge who decided to make a 9yo girl a ward of the state just so he could change her name. He was tired of parents naming their children weird names, so he took action.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080724/ap_on_re_au_an/new_zealand_bizarre_names

Here's a quote:

"The court is profoundly concerned about the very poor judgment which this child's parents have shown in choosing this name," he wrote. "It makes a fool of the child and sets her up with a social disability and handicap, unnecessarily."

The parents have every right to name their child whatever they want, no matter how ridiculous or socially upsetting it may be. Parents make stupid choices everyday that result from poor judgement. That doesn't mean that we need the court to step in and correct our problems.

This kind of thing is going to be more prevalent as the rights of the child become more important than the rights of parents. We are headed closer and closer to becoming like liberal Europe where society decides what is right for children, not their parents.

Check this site for more info about parental rights and protect yourself from the government and its zealous law-makers. http://www.parentalrights.org/

Tuesday was my birthday.  See the lovely roses my thoughtful husband brought me?  Can you see that some of them have a bit of red around the edges?  Gorgeous!  And do you see the card with the birds on it (I adore little birdies), in the aqua envelope (aqua is one of my very favorite colors) ?  He's awesome that way. 

Do you know, I don't just get roses for my birthday, I get them for each of the childrens' birthdays as well!  He tells me, "Thank you for making me a father."  Does is get any better than this?  Oh, okay, maybe it does--I forgot to say that he can never remember my favorite color of roses (chuckle chuckle chuckle), so he blesses me with a different color every time.   Actually, I don't know that I have a favorite color, I just consider myself fortunate that my husband goes to the trouble to bring me flowers of any color!   :)

We finished shipping all the preorders for the new All Through the Ages, and since we were behind on getting everyone their e-mail shipping confirmations, we have been working double duty on those this week. By the end of today, Lord willing, we hope to have all of those out too. So I can tentatively plan on getting back to regular blogging by tomorrow ... barring anything else happening, LOL!

No more we suspect.... or there is a history of... or most likely she has....  Yesterday, the Geneticist diagnosised my 7 year old daughter with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) and depending on a few measurements that need to be confirmed from her birth records she may be upgraded to Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS).  There really is very little difference between the two, the latter has more facial anomalies.  We always had heard the stories that her birth mother was "fall down drunk" as we moved through different departments of the government such as WIC and DSS, but it seemed strange to us and the doctors that Goldilock's younger brother (Tom Sawyer) showed no affects of Alcohol and just the opposite, he is very very bright and growing like a weed.  Because of her brothers success the doctors in the past felt that although she may be labeled with FASD someday it was probably that her environment had been so poor/abusive in infancy and that once she was healed from RAD~Reactive attachment disorder, her development, academics and behavior would catch up.  She is considered to be mostly healed from RAD but her behavior is still very upredictable, processing is very slow, academics are coming out very poor on tests (as if I didn't already know that), she came out again with an IQ in the high 70's and now her growth has slowed down a great deal.  She hasn't changed shoe sizes or clothing sizes in 2 years, but has grown taller, a bit.  So back we went to the doctors for another evaluation.

In some ways I feel relieved and in other ways devasted.  My little girl really is bonded to us and knows and wants us as her parents.  I figure it took her 5 years and many many hours of therapy to get her here.  This is great news.  However, FASD is permanent brain damage and there is no recovering from or healing from it.  There is only learning how to live with it and helping her meet her full potential with in it.  I knew in my heart that this was coming for a long time but it is still hard to digest.  This new diagnosis means that she will most likely qualify for CAP, a program that provides a one on one to help her with school, behavior managment, and so on.  This is great since her mental health support is drying up rapidly.  It also means more books to read and a new support group to join which may afford me more trick of the trade.

I am not at all new to raising complicated children and searching out and finding the gifts God as bestowed upon my little ones.  I have been raising complicated children for 18 years now.  My big teen is meeting his God given potential and turning into a wonderful young man (who will always need support) despite dier predictions that he would only be able to function in a group home/institution.  So we embark on this new path with our Goldilocks.

Please pray that we will find the right support and answers to help our little girl.  That she will meet her fullest possible potential.  That we will continue to see her grow and develop. That we will find her true gifts and figure out how to help her bring them to life.

A side note~The doctor begged me to never put her in to public school! She said that public school would destroy her fragile self worth that we have worked so hard to achieve. She said Goldilocks was so blessed to be homeschooled and that I should never give up and think that the school system could do better. No worries there...

Blessings,

Dawn