Protection for our Children

We had an incident yesterday at Little League practice and it has left me with a question that I would love to have answered. Why are our Children not protected?

Our kids are practicing ball, Little League and T-ball had already started and some Minor Leaguers were showing up when a man pulls up right behind us and pulls out a video camera and sets it up. Our first reaction is not good, we've been through this before so immediately all of our defenses are up. He starts by filming the school and the Coal Mines behind it but then he turns his camera onto our kids. One of the Moms asks him "Why are you filming our kids?" We get the standard reply, that he is on public property and can film whatever he wants and that our kids will be blurred out and not recognizable. Then we see the Police drive down the road, then back up again and then he parks in front of the school. One of the Moms goes to talk to the cop but as soon as she leaves we realize, the police are never around here unless something is going on, it is obvious immediately that he is here to protect the guy that is filming. That is exactly what he told the parents that talked to him too. If we don't want our kids to be filmed then we should remove them from the ball field. A few of the Dads go and stand in front of his camera until he moves on and eventually he says that he is not there to support the protesters and that he is actually doing an investigation about them but it doesn't matter either way to me. Why are our children allowed to be hassled, why are their school buses allowed to be blocked, why are they allowed to be filmed while playing on the school playground or the ball field, and why can't our kids just be allowed to be kids? They don't care about Mountain Top Removal, they don't care about what these people are protesting about, they just want to go to school and practice ball. IN PEACE!! Yet the cop was there to protect the guy that was there to film and hassle them. The schools have to have written permission to take our kids pictures or to post them in the school or on the schools website. So how can this guy, all of these guys, just walk up and film them while they are on school property? Just because he is standing on public property? I just can't understand the way this world works. All of these people show up from other states to tell us that how we live is wrong and that we are abusive to our kids because we allow them to live in this environment, they harass the miners as they go to work, they make up things to make us look like we are horrible people, the call us Coal Whores because we can actually afford to stay home and raise our children and the GOVERNMENT pays them to do it. The POLICE protect them. It makes no sense at all to me.

For Just One Week

I'm getting back to this after a few weeks of not having time to even think, let along plan. So for this week I have 2 goals: One is a repeat that you have seen often - I'm going to try to walk everyday for at least 30 minutes. The second goal is going to be to post on here everyday this week. I need to get myself started going again on trying to achieve my 30 days to a new habit goal of walking everyday. I also want to get back to posting on a regular basis. Not because I want to be popular, I have no illusions of being famous, but because it makes me feel better. To be able to release some of the thoughts and feelings running around in this crazy mind of mine is always such a relief. So hopefully this week I can get myself headed in the right direction - FORWARD!!!

More Chaos

Another period of chaos around here. It's funny, I thought as my kids got older that would become less of an issue but that just doesn't seem to be the case. I guess when they were younger I had more control over the germs that they passed back and forth. Now when one of them gets something, it seems that they all do. Although Matt did get pink eye without passing it on to the others, even though they caught his cold. I went 6 days without having a moment to myself and it left me wondering how in the world I survived them all being little.

Matt's sinus infection cleared up but on the morning I had to take him back for the check-up he woke up with pink eye and a cold. So he was home for 5 days because of the pink eye, during that time Jo sprained his ankle and Audrey caught the cold. Then as soon as they got better Drew caught the cold. The week before they all started getting sick was the book fair at the younger kids school and the week after was the beginning of Little League baseball season. Drew had to go to the final day of Major League try-outs sick but he made the team. It seems things are calming down and Spring is trying to take hold, so I have hope.

I have all kinds of updates to give you and lots of things I want to blog about so I'm going to try to start posting more regularly.

All is Good

I took Matt to the doctor Friday and she is pretty sure that it was just a severe sinus infection. She gave him a shot of antibiotics plus a 5 day round of antibiotics and we are giving him Claritin. Everything else was fine and as long as all is good when we go back this Friday the worry is over. He already looks so much better, actually he looked better the next morning after getting the shot. So it seems that I was worried for nothing. It puzzles me that he had a sinus infection that bad and wasn't running a fever but she said that was because it was all impacted in his face.

Now on to other things: I completed my first 30 days to a New Habit. I read my Bible everyday for 30 days and have read it most days since. This week for my For Just One Week I am trying to stick to a morning schedule. I did it today but on the very first day, Monday, it didn't go so well. I didn't get out of bed until 6:30 and that is when my Middle Schoolers should be getting on the bus So...... that was a wash. I am trying to stick to it the rest of the week and I'm thinking I may make it my next 30 days to a New Habit. I put the older kids on the bus at 6:30 and don't have to get the other kids up until 7:40. So I am walking during that time. If I have something to do that day I'm walking 30 minutes and then showering before they get up. If I don't have anywhere to go before that evening I will walk for the full hour(or at least try to-I'm still working up to that again). I did very good this morning - got in a 30 minute walk and shower with 10 minutes to spare before I had to get them up. The kids elementary school is having a Book Fair this week plus I have to take Matt back to the doctor on Friday so the only day I won't have extra walking time is Thursday plus its a tough week to try to do this because I'm already exhausted but that's the point right - to push myself.

Sleep Thinking

I don't dream, at least not often and when I do it's usually not good. This week has brought some weird sleep for me. I'm not dreaming, at least I don't think it is dreams. It's more like I'm thinking the whole time I'm asleep. It is beyond annoying. Everytime I wake up, and that has been a lot, I have something on my mind and I know that I have been "thinking" about it while I'm sleeping. I am worried about a few things but it's not really anymore than I always have to worry about. I am getting extremely tired, extremely. It is like my mind is never resting and I suppose it probably isn't. I've never experienced this before, it has me wondering if I'm normal (nevermind that, I already know the answer to that HaHa). I'm really hoping it's all about one certain thing that I'm worrying about and that it will all be over soon. Mattman, our youngest, hasn't felt good for awhile and is going to the doctor today. It's nothing specific, he just feels bad in general. Not eating well, not sleeping well, he is really pale and he stays so tired. If he sits down for long, he is asleep. It's not something that would normally have me over worried but he's been like this before. When he was about 3 he got like this and we took him to the doctor. They told us that his levels could only mean one thing - that he had leukemia. When we took him back in a week to do the follow up tests, to try to determine exactly what type he had, everything was clear. That was a hard couple of weeks though that included everyone that we knew praying. I just can't imagine having to go through that again or having to deal with something really being bad wrong with him. I know that we could, I just don't want to have to. Who does! I'm hoping it's something simple and that after we figure it out my sleep can go back to normal. I don't like thinking in my sleep!!

Update

I did really good on my For Just One Week last week and I really need to start following that schedule all the time. I didn't set one for this week because I knew it was going to be a crazy week but I already have next weeks lined up in my head. I am up to 28 days of reading my Bible everyday, so 2 more days and I will have completed that. We'll see if it turns into a habit or not. I'm hoping my For Just One Week next week will help me get going on Walking for 30 days.