Category:

motherhood/family/parenting

Sickness on the House

by Kelly Crawford February 24, 2009

written by Kelly Crawford

I try not to whine but…

What’s worse than the “throw-up virus” in a large family?

The throw-up flu, I suppose–especially when three little ones have it at the same time!

This is our morning–after virtually neither of us slept because we had these two in our rooms suffering from coughs, fevers, etc. Kyla was up all night, and then, right about the time they got settled (it was daylight by then) and we drifted off into what felt like our first bit of real sleep,

Avi made it to our room before she threw up–and woke the two littles 😉

OK, so maybe I don’t try too hard not to whine.

“Here ya go, Kelly, a chance to live out that ‘giving all of yourself” you’ve been bloggin’ about.”

Careful what you say.

I am thankful for opportunities to die to my flesh, just not at the moment they arrive 😉

We thought it was the stomach bug, but after the first sickie came down with fever, bad cough and feeling miserable for more than a day, we decided it’s probably the flu.

For the record, we just had the stomach virus less than a month ago. If I had blogged about that, you would have found out that my seven-year-old, who gets terrified when she gets sick, didn’t throw up in the boat-sized container I strategically placed by her bed…oh no, she threw up right on top of her sister’s head who sleeps below her in the trundle. Great 2-in-the morning fun!

For a family our size, the stomach bug means quarantine for like a year. It’s at least a month-long cabin-fever sentence. It’s really hard to describe unless you’ve attended 2 or 3 at a time, all throwing up, some crying, some running around spraying Lysol and opening windows–and you know that it will strike again, and again, and again, until it’s run the whole gamut of people who live here.

One time, Aaron, I AND Bria, the oldest, were deathly sick with some awful virus at the same time–literally unable to move. I remember just lying there praying, “Lord keep them safe”, while the 6-year old in charge at the time handed out rounds of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

If I ever DID choose a bad reason for having large families, this would be it.

Today has consisted of little more than holding babies–sometimes two at a time, trying desperately to distract them, praying, and wishing I could take their place. It’s an ironic combination of motherly bliss and exhaustion.

I write this blog in my pajamas…the ones I was wearing when I got up this morning.

I asked Avi if I could hold her…she said in the weakest voice, “No, I don’t want you to get sick”.

This is as much misery for a mother as the ones who are sick, I think. But I am ALWAYS brought to gratitude when we get sick…that it is temporary. And my heart aches for those who are struggling with chronic or terminal illness with no end in sight.

This, too, shall pass.

P.S. My darling husband handed me some money tonight after supper and said, “You and Bria run into town for dessert–y’all need a break.” He is the true servant in our family.

February 24, 2009 37 comments

They’ve Banned Tag–Yes, the Game–Because Kids Were Chasing Each Other

by Kelly Crawford February 23, 2009

written by Kelly Crawford

Love Glenn Beck…can’t help it. Yeah, I know he’s Mormon. He’s also smart, he’s got a backbone and a brain. A rarity among media-types these days. I’ve copied and pasted a few of my favorite pieces from him for posts here and there. I’m so glad he’s still allowed on prime time television.

This radio show transcript is just too funny, and sad, all at the same time. The last paragraph is the best.

GLENN: Colorado schools have banned tag on its playgrounds. I’m having a hard time with this one. For as evil as I think tag is, you know, I worked tirelessly to make sure we didn’t do dodge ball. Dodge ball, they are throwing a ball at you. How are you expected to survive, you know? Red Rover, Red Rover, send so-and-so right over? I was never picked. It lowered my self-esteem. I mean, he was always the last guy. Red Rover, Red Rover, send anybody but Glenn over. Can you check in the classroom, see if there’s anybody doing their homework. Where’s Arnold? Can you call Arnold’s mom, see if he can come out to play because we definitely don’t want anybody — we don’t want anybody named Glenn to come right over. Oh, it’s tragic. So hopefully we can get Red Rover, Red Rover banned as well.

A Colorado school has banned tag because some children complained that they were being chased.

Just a second. I’m sorry. I just want to — they’re playing tag. Tag, tag, tag… tag, and they were being chased. Well, what will they think of next? Now kids are chasing each other during tag. My gosh, what’s next. One of the assistant principals of the Discovery Canyon school — may I ask, please tell me, Colorado, that’s called Discovery Canyon that that’s the town or the area? It’s not like, hi, welcome to Discovery Canyon School; you can discover all kinds of things. Doesn’t that just sound politically correct?

She says that the running games will still be allowed as long as you don’t chase each other. May I ask you a question? When you were in the third grade, isn’t that pretty much what you did all day? When you would go out and you’d play on the playground, you’d chase each other? Right now Cheyenne just learned how to walk and every day I look down at my — I look down at my webcam and for, like, an hour all they’re doing around the house is chasing each other around our — we have this enormous coffee table in our living room, and all they’re doing is chasing each other around the coffee table. That’s what happens with kids. That’s what they do. And I don’t know if you’ve missed the — well, I haven’t seen tag’s rules in quite some time, but isn’t that it? They chase you? You try to outrun them so you’re not it and then when you are it, you chase somebody?

Here’s an idea. Kids, if you don’t want to be chased, stop running. Then they’ll tag you. Then you chase them! That way they can have their attorneys call your parents and sue you for chasing them as opposed to your attorneys suing them for chasing you. It’s incredible.

Two parents have complained about the ban on tag but most parents and children didn’t object, the assistant principal said. Yeah. You know why? That’s because they’re all dead now. They’re all just, their souls have been sucked out of them. They just might as well, they’re in their house now and they see on the news… “Oh, looks like they’ve banned tag” and they’re just sitting in their living room, of course we ban tag; I mean, why not ban tag. Kids are being chased. Honey, do we have anything in the house that I can overdose on?

I mean, that’s what’s happening to us! We’re not complaining anymore because we know it won’t make a difference! We’re sheep. Banning tag.

February 23, 2009 39 comments

christian living motherhood/family/parenting

A Mother’s Life: The Profoundest of Classrooms

by Kelly Crawford February 23, 2009

written by Kelly Crawford

“I will spend myself to the last ebb for you; you may give me praise or give me blame, it will make no difference…When we realize that Jesus Christ has served us to the end of our meanness, our selfishness, and sin, nothing that we meet with from others can exhaust our determination to serve men for His sake.” -Oswald Chambers

Aaron read this devotion from “My Utmost for His Highest” this morning, and oh the sting of the realization that servant hood is so completely counter to my nature.

And yet I know that my greatest job on earth is to press into my children, like a mold, the image of Christ, and that image, in a word, is SERVANT.

That’s what He came for–to serve, to be spent, and to lay down His life. And that is what He asks from us. That is why the world hates Him so; because in our flesh, this is detestable. Being “abased” as Paul said he was willing to do, is not en vogue.

Because we live in a culture that SCREAMS the antithesis of Jesus’s teachings–in a culture that says, “Look out for you“, raising children to be servants takes all the more intensity of effort.

We must fight against our own tendencies to pamper and coddle them, and keep the goal fixed in place–raising up real warriors for Christ means raising servants who are willing to empty themselves for others, without any expectations–the greatest irony of human nature.

So mothers, does your job feel menial–the scrubbing of toilets, the wiping of noses, the changing of diapers? If you will only perform these tasks with humility, tenderness and contentment, your life has become the profoundest of classrooms, and your children will become the wisest of students.

February 23, 2009 13 comments

humor motherhood/family/parenting pregnancy/birth control

My One-of-a-Kind Birthing Plan ;-)

by Kelly Crawford February 20, 2009

written by Kelly Crawford

As we continue to lean toward a natural childbirth (details in THIS post), I’ve been fairly concerned with the hospital staff’s cooperation. Not that I’ve ever felt the nurses at our hospital are necessarily against it, but I know that typical hospital protocol is not that friendly to natural child birth.

AND, I’m guessing that opposition to our choices are not going to be well-received while I’m in the throes of labor *SMILE*, so I’ve been thinking about how best to head off any contention from the beginning.

I had a brilliant idea in my sleep (that’s where my best thinking occurs 😉 Instead of my first thoughts of a detailed, firmly-stated birthing plan which might likely be lumped in with all the other “Oh great, one of those again” plans, I decided to write a light-hearted, rhyming plan! Is that not a great idea?

So, here’s what I’ve come up with so far:

Our Birth Plan

I’ve given birth to seven babes, and six were here with you,
But now it’s time for number eight and we’re trying something new!

I’ve always been an epi girl, love that needle-man!
But natural is my choice this time, so here’s my birthing plan!

I’ll need your comfort and support, I’m glad to give birth here,
But I prefer no needles or machines to interfere.

(Unless of course, though very rare, a problem does arise,
at which point, if we’re informed, we’ll gladly heed advice.)

We’re eager to embrace this journey as the Lord intends,
and ask for freedom as my body leads us to the end.

The end of the beginning, for this precious girl or boy,
We say a great big “THANK YOU” for sharing in our joy!

P.S. No copyright infringement exists; feel free to use it if you wish!
P.S.S. I reserve the right to change my mind about the natural thing despite my cute plan 😉

February 20, 2009 35 comments

motherhood/family/parenting pregnancy/birth control

So, What Do You Think of Natural Childbirth?

by Kelly Crawford February 17, 2009

written by Kelly Crawford

Here’s my big announcement…

I’m thinking of going natural with this delivery (I hear gasps from those who know me).

I know you natural girls will find this amusing, but I am an epidural-lovin’ girl..always have been. When the doctor says, “Call me when you’re on your way to the hospital“, I’m like, “Don’t worry about calling the doctor…is the anesthesiologist on stand-by?”

But, if I am anything, I am a woman who doesn’t want to make blind choices, just because someone else does something, or just because it’s considered “normal” or culturally acceptable. I question. I study. I dig. I pray. I research.

But this is one area I admit to which I haven’t given this kind of attention. So, I’ll just say I’m on a journey to learn all I can. And at the end of it, regardless of our decision, I want to be able to say that I am making a thoroughly thought-out choice that I can back up.

Daja, from Gombojav tribe has been so gracious to post a great series on natural childbirth after my challenge to her to “convince me”.

Daja is a doula and child-birth instructor, and when I was desperately wanting to induce labor with my last child, she was so sweet to give me all kinds of ideas about how to do that naturally, though I’ve never met her ! (Don’t you just love that about blog world?)

I’m open to any and all opinions you have, whether you are a natural girl or one not ashamed to say you love drugs 😉

By the way, in my state, midwives only practice “undercover” and they are few and far between. They are not covered, legally, so a home-birth is more difficult, though not impossible.

I will also add, that even though we’re considering natural childbirth, we really love our “vacation” at the hospital, as my husband calls it. Two days of television, food and being waited on…it’s hard to beat. So we’re not leaning toward the home-birth experience, just a physically natural one.

I’m also anticipating the obstacles I know I’ll face in a hospital if I do go natural…I’m already put out at all the unnecessary protocol at the hospital, and little by little, we have managed to reduce that with each birth.

So, there ya go! My friends Kathy and Robin caught wind of my thoughts (actually, I’m begging Robin to “go first”) and have decided it would be the ultimate coolness to do a virtual, live video for the blog, LOL! At least there would be no turning back, huh?

February 17, 2009 75 comments

motherhood/family/parenting

To Hold or Not to Hold: Baby Detachment?

by Kelly Crawford February 13, 2009

written by Kelly Crawford

Maybe I’m reading too far into this, but I have just noticed a trend among new mothers–particularly young ones, that seems to go hand-in-hand with our mindset of detaching with young children. (I know it’s not a new trend, but maybe I haven’t given it much thought until now.)

I was meeting with a bride and her mother and grandmother today–for about 30 minutes. When they arrived, they retrieved a bulky–one of those heavy-duty–strollers out of the car. The bride placed her 1 month old baby in the stroller, and then lugged it up the stairs and into the room where we met.

The grandmother announced, “I just came to help with the baby”. The baby remained in the stroller the whole time and when she whimpered, the mother would stick a bottle in her mouth.

Small incident, I know, but I couldn’t stop thinking about how odd it seemed to me. Why go through all the trouble with that huge stroller when there were three of them to hold the baby, who at 1 month was really easy to handle?

Why not hold the baby?

And of course we have all kinds of gadgets to entertain baby–bouncy seats, jumpy seats, twirly seats–I’ve heard it called “plastic mothering”, and I’ve just recently given it more serious thought.

Not that I never placed my child in these! Of course I have. But to make it the default position, even if it’s more trouble, was what piqued my curiosity.

Is it part of the “detachment syndrome” we are seeing where mothers jet back to work and leave behind their 6-week old behind? Which came first? The leaving, or the detaching? Is it detaching at all?

Just curious about your thoughts…I’m open.

February 13, 2009 65 comments

motherhood/family/parenting

Formula for Destiny: Motherhood’s Best Work

by Kelly Crawford February 11, 2009

written by Kelly Crawford

Formula for Destiny: Motherhood’s Best Work

Aside from seeing my children love the Lord, their development of character is the highest priority on my list. It determines who they are and largely, what they will become. And what my children become and what your children become determines who *WE* become.

It’s so simple we overlook it…”character–it’s everything“.

We’re reading a book called “The Case for Character” and the simple, profound truth comes underneath me as a mother, and bears me up to persevere, keep working and embracing this beautiful, arduous job.

There’s a simple formula as true as the law of physics:

Thoughts determine actions…

Actions determine habits…

Habits determine character…

Character determines destiny.

And here’s what it means for us in the daily grind:

These precious children are born with a sin nature. And that nature will constantly push itself to the surface. If left unchecked, that sin nature in them will develop into bad habits and then into bad character and can ultimately have devastating results.

Someone has to be there–someone WILL be there–all the time–either bending that little sapling back, REMINDING, REPLACING those naturally bad habits with good ones, or allowing the bad ones to become stronger until the tree is permanently crooked.

And here comes that delicious, mother-irony again…

We spend our days doing what others may say is little. And looking in on one moment of time, it is little. But the really important things are done a little bit at a time.

Ronald Regan put it well:

“The character that takes command in moments of crucial choices has already been determined. It has been determined by a thousand other choices made earlier in seemingly unimportant moments…it has been determined by all the day-to-day decisions made when life seemed easy and crises seemed far away, the decisions that, piece by piece, bit by bit, developed habits of discipline or of laziness, habits of self-sacrifice or self-indulgence; habits of duty and honor and integrity–or dishonor and shame.”

Does it get any bigger? Can I trust the character of my children–can we trust the character of our children to anyone else?

And so I say to my little one, again, tiring as it is, “No, you may not speak unkindly. Say ‘would you excuse me please’, not ‘MOVE!’….go on, say it the right way.”

Forming habits, one thought, one action at a time–being there in the little moments, to fortify the character that will stand in the big ones–the character that will one day bear us all up or tear us all down.

February 11, 2009 13 comments

homeschooling motherhood/family/parenting public school

Gatto: State Controlled Consciousness (Public School)

by Kelly Crawford February 11, 2009

written by Kelly Crawford

I think I’ve posted this video before, but it’s worth posting again. If you are hesitant to believe that the original model of public school began with a dangerous agenda, J.T. Gatto details the proof and origin of that agenda.

Interestingly, though his book and this interview took place years ago, we can see all the more clearly the truth of his claims in our current system.

Remember the post the other day about “doing away with traditional family ideals”? This was the very intent from the beginning–“family structure is a hindrance to a Utopian society and children have to be separated from it”.

PLEASE listen, ponder then pass it on–don’t be afraid!

February 11, 2009 35 comments

homeschooling motherhood/family/parenting public school

The New Dumbness–Gatto and Public School

by Kelly Crawford February 11, 2009

written by Kelly Crawford

“Ordinary people send their children to school to get smart, but what modern schooling teaches is dumbness.”

I realize it’s quite possible you get tired of my posting about public school. But if you asked me to narrow down our social problems to ONE thing, I would probably owe the bulk, or at least the beginning of it to the mass public school crisis.

Crisis? Yes. As readers have proven before, most people don’t see the public school system as a *bad* thing and certainly not a crisis. This is part of the plan. “They” tell us it’s wonderful and we believe them and send our children there. The frightening results of the terrorist lifestyle begins as they “teach” their small children to think a certain way; so it is here…”whoever controls the children controls the culture”.

(And please don’t take my passion against public school as a personal insult; I have wonderful friends and family with children in the system; I’m not *against you*…the very reason I address it is because I’m FOR you! I ache to see Christians understand the dilemma and begin discipling their children.)

“Old-fashioned dumbness used to be simple ignorance; now it is transformed from ignorance into permanent mathematical categories of relative stupidity like “gifted and talented,” “mainstream,” “special ed.” Categories in which learning is rationed for the good of a system of order. Dumb people are no longer merely ignorant. Now they are indoctrinated, their minds conditioned with substantial doses of commercially prepared disinformation dispensed for tranquilizing purposes.” JTG

With all that’s going on in our nation, it has caused me to reflect even deeper about “how we got here”. There are no easy answers, of course. And no one answer. But I keep going back to the fact that we created a group of people who willinging accepted a socialist agenda. We have just said “yes” to a socialist government.

We–formerly hard-working Americans who built a country from the ground up…who believed the government had very little power beyond enforcing the civil law…who believed in personal responsibility–Americans who worked til we dropped and were willing to die so that our grandchildren could have a free place to live, have, in a few short years, become lazy, selfish, immoral idiots who want everything given to us and have such a perverted sense of government and personal responsibility that we’re paying for it like no other nation ever has. Where suffering was once a bedrock of building character, now the constant attempt to escape any hardship has pushed us to kill our own children!

And as long as I know Christians who still don’t understand the seriousness of what the public school system has to do with this, I will keep talking about it. I know I risk upsetting people; but this is one of those “cliff up ahead” that I cannot keep silent about.

If anything else, read, learn, research. At least be open to consider the arguments that exist.

John Taylor Gatto’s “The Underground History of American Education” is probably the most telling work about the public educational system. A public school educator himself for 30 years, he stands as qualified as any to reveal the system’s destructiveness.

His assertion, in a nutshell, is that we have systematically and purposely mass-produced a nation full of dumb people in order to control them. What do you think?

“The individual has no chance to exercise his judgment either on principal questions or on their implication; this leads to the atrophy of a faculty not comfortably exercised under [the best of] conditions…Once personal judgment and critical faculties have disappeared or have atrophied, they will not simply reappear when propaganda is suppressed…years of intellectual and spiritual education would be needed to restore such faculties.”

And just an interesting side note, I’ve heard so many times in an argument against homeschooling that “public school children are given the opportunity to think”…which is directly opposite the observation above.

“A pupil is not above his teacher; but everyone, after he has been fully trained, will be like his teacher.” Luke 6:40

And the main reason I keep talking? I don’t believe the damage to our nation is irreversible. I believe when God’s people begin understanding their crucial responsibility to train and disciple their children in godliness, character and love–take them back from the government, we will begin to see a revolution. And THAT is why I keep talking 😉

Excerpts taken from: The New Dumbness from The Underground History of American Education

February 11, 2009 22 comments

homeschooling motherhood/family/parenting public school

Reason 824 to Get Your Kids Out of Public School

by Kelly Crawford February 10, 2009

written by Kelly Crawford

“The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that people have the right to sue schools over sexual discrimination….

And I think what it ultimately will mean is –that schools will pass as a reaction to this [will require] homosexual sensitivity training programs. [T]hey’ll call them ‘no bullying’ laws or ‘sensitivity’ or ‘tolerance’ laws, but actually what it will be are laws that will focus on homosexuality,” he contends. “And anybody who says anything that is negative against homosexuality or in support of traditional morality-which, by the way, discriminates against nontraditional immorality — is going to be subject to these particular laws”

Laying all ethical/moral issues aside, (and there is plenty for Christians to discuss) how can the public school really be a place of academic instruction when they are consumed with petty litigation, walking on eggshells to prevent lawsuits that “easy-money” parents will be waiting to jump at?

Schools continue to fail miserably in their basic responsibilities to teach children and instead grow as a social reform institution whose job is to remove any and all preconceived ideas about family, tradition or truth.

Let me repeat what is happening in case you missed it in the quote: the public school system is basically being forced to be neutral (actually it’s biased to the *other* agendas, but they don’t want us to know that) to the extent that talking about the traditional family will, by default, be *discrimination*. Children are being indoctrinated to believe there is no such thing as a family the way societies have always structured them. Family has been redefined as any group of people who live together??? If that.

I recently had a conversation with a new school teacher, fresh out of college in her first year teaching. She said, very condescendingly to me while shaking her head “no”, “Kelly, the family is dead…it doesn’t exist anymore”. This is what they’re telling the teachers, and that is the message being perpetuated to a new generation.

I’m not even tip-toeing anymore…Christians, get your kids out of public school.

Public Schools are Tolerance Training

“Public school is a place of detention for children placed in the care of teachers who are afraid of the principal, principals who are afraid of the school board, school boards who are afraid of the parents, parents who are afraid of the children, and children who are afraid of nobody.”
-Anonymous

February 10, 2009 9 comments

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