Problem Solved, at least for ME

This is the last day of the long Spring Break week!

Things have gone quite well. Will has kept all his clothes on for the most part. Jeremy hasn't broken any windows or destroyed any furniture. No trips to the ER. So by those standards I can say it has been a successful week, unlike past years.

Today started out bad, though, as Jeremy is really getting antsy. He had the DVD of High School Musical 2 blaring in the play room. I mean BLARING. And he refused to turn it down. And because he had in previous years punched out all the little buttons that control the volume, and had the remote in his hands and refused to give it up without a fight, I could see a definite trend to ramp things up.

So I took the DVD and told him he could have it back when he turned over the remote.

Resigned now to a day of, well, you know what, I told my husband about it. He was getting ready to take Jay to the Ortho clinic. And the angel that he is, he offered to take Jeremy with him! At that moment he looked really holy to me.

He'll have problems with him there for sure, as you have to sit and wait for hours. But what a loving thing to do for me.

And I thought of both my husband and Jeremy, as well as myself when I read Neale Donald Walsch's message for the day. It's truly wonderful.

On this day of your life, I believe God wants you to know...

....that beauty comes in many forms--and there is no form

more beautiful than you.

Just exactly as you are, this minute, right now, without

changing a thing...you are beautiful. Beautiful enough to

take God's breath away.

You do believe this, don't you? Oh, you must. You must.

How can I believe in my beauty if you don't believe in

yours? It's for me you must believe, not for you...

I hope you feel total peace wash over you when you read that...I did. If you didn't, read it again.

What Are The Chances Here? Really? Amazing!!!

For those of you who don't believe in the Law of Attraction, or for that matter, in miracles...Consider this:

The photo here is of Amanda, our second adoption. She was born in 1977 to a woman living in an institution since age 4, who had contractures in every joint in her body and was profoundly mentally handicapped, and a man who worked at the place and took advantage of her.

Nobody knew that the woman was pregnant until she was ready to give birth, and all that time Amanda was exposed to massive amounts of anti seizure drugs and others. We got her when she was about a month old.

She was born with a bilateral cleft lip and her little feet were so deformed that they were stuck up against her legs. Those were serial casted down and she learned to walk, and the cleft lip was repaired early on.

But those were the least of her problems. This little girl cried and screamed almost all day and night. And she constantly punched herself in the chin and hit her chin on her shoulder and bit herself. Imagine spending your days with a child who cannot be calmed down, and who constantly hurt herself.

We loved her and worked with her until she was eight years old, when she became even more self abusive and I had her Baker Acted to the hospital. They moved her to a major psychiatric hospital in town with a children's wing. No matter what they did she never did get better.

When her time wore out at that place we had her placed in another program in town, where she did a little better but not very much. They couldn't keep her in bed, either. Nobody could. And the self abuse was frightful and bloody.

A painful decision was made to place her in a group home. It took forever to find one in the state that would take her, and it was clear on the other side of the state. So I sadly took my little girl on a plane ride that I thought would never end. It snowed and they couldn't land in the right airport, so we had to take a bus ride for about three hours to get to the home. She cried and screamed the whole time, but that wasn't unusual.

Just about every week I'd get a phone call about her stuffing a mathchbook up her nose or something and having to be taken to the ER, or biting herself somewhere and trip to ER, or banging her head so hard that she had to go to the ER.

We then moved south, and the group home threw her out, They couldn't take the risk anymore. She was the most severely self abusive kid they had ever had. It took a while to find another group home for her in our new state, and it was two counties away.

Over the past 20 years she had been moved from one group home to another. We could not get up to see her often because of the size of our family here and the medical conditions that our kids had. Caseworkers changed, the group home owner I had given legal guardianship to, so they didn't have to call me for every little thing, closed down and she dropped her guardianship.

Eventually she was lost to us. We had no idea where she was, and nobody else did either. Our names seemed to have been dropped into a black hole.

I was looking at pictures of her about a week ago and hoping she was OK. And if you read this blog you know that I am a firm believer in The Secret and the law of attraction.

Yesterday, my daughter who works in a local gastroenterologist's office called me and said, "You'll never believe who is here. It's Amanda!"

Her current group home, some 2-3 hours away, had brought her in for an evaluation. They couldn't find a medicaid provider in their county that would take her, so the lady thought, "I bet I an find one in (our city.) There are several medicaid gastro offices here, and a some in the county above us. But she picked THIS ONE about 20 minutes from our home. The one where Amanda's sister was working...

My husband and I quickly got in the car to go see her. Amazing! She's 31 now and much the same. The staff had been told that she had no relatives. I gave her Amanda's birthdate, and told her about the finger Amanda had chewed off as a child on a schoolbus. We had a wonderful reunion! Amanda is now totally blind. We exchanged phone number and addresses. They were delighted to find parents they could call for permission to admit her or treat her.

So what do you think ARE the chances of this happening? Two counties away, the staff had no idea she had any family here-and I mean 20 minutes away from the office, and that her sister would be working there and recognize her???

This is just another wonderful incident in my journey through the Law of Attraction, and the love of God.

Anything is possible. Anything. Get the movie-The Secret-it's way better than the book. Then take it further with Joe Vitale's book "The Attractor Factor." and "The Key."

What God Wants You To Know

I'm always on a search for PEACE in my life. In the past year I've increased my sense of peace by at least 75% using the methods in The Secret.

Here's something from Neale Donald Walsch today. Use it to find PEACE today.

On this day of your life, I believe God wants you to know...

....that you can remain in your present idea about yourself,

or you can choose again. I like the idea of choosing again.

Glorify who you are today, do not condemn who you

were yesterday, and dream of who you can be tomorrow.

Choose again. Who do you want to be today?

You will not have to think for more than a second to

know exactly why you just read this...

15 Blue Ribbons, Two reds and one yellow ribbon

That's the score in Saturday's Area Special Olympics for my kids. We have an entire wall in our playroom with ribbons-all placed near the ceiling so Will won't rip them down.

The kids get so much out of competing.

Here's a secret on how to get a lot of blue ribbons. Have them compete in events that aren't so popular. Like the WALK. Dani does two walk events and always gets blue ribbons for them. It's not a "walk in the park" though (pun intended.) You have to be able to keep at least one foot on the ground at all times. That takes skill.

Today everyone was tired. A nice quiet day. Tomorrow begins Spring Break. I doubt that it will be as quiet!

Jay, 14 says to me today "Mom, You're smart for someone your age."

Home Alone

This coming week is our Spring Break here and all the kids will be home. So I'm home alone while everyone else in the house is at Special Olympics. I got up early today, but I haven't really accomplished much. And I don't care. I was just enjoying the peace and quiet...and then Jack, the dog, started throwing up. So I'm chasing him around with a towel. Oh well...

Neale Donald Walsch

If you are a follower of "The Secret" then you will love what Neale Donald Walsch has for you.

Neale is on of the presenters in the movie, and has a website at http://www.nealedonaldwalsch.com . You can sign up for his daily inspirational email message.

It's a marvelous way to start off your day feeling good. I've decided to post those messages here.

Today's message is:

On this day of your life, I believe God wants you to know...

....that everything is falling together perfectly, even

though it looks as if some things are falling apart .

Trust in the process you are now experiencing. Life

is on your side. It is showing that to you now, though

you may not be able to see it clearly at this time.

You have made your wishes and dreams known to

God. Now comes the time for faith. Faith that all

is right, right now. Tomorrow will reveal itself exactly

as it should.

Schools think they own our kids

If I asked you the question, "What is the function of a SCHOOL?" You'd say educating our children, right?

But you'd be soooo wrong.

Schools today have gradually taken on more powers. Just educating the kids isn't enough. Now they think they are responsible for everything in your child's life.

The clothes they wear aren't brand new and trendy? Their shoes not exactly new? You could be in trouble.

You kid has a runny nose? Or an itchy foot? THAT could get you in trouble.

Schools now are considering themselves GUARDIANS of our kids. Not the parents. The parents are downgraded to caretakers. Not the people who care the MOST ab out a child, who have that child's best interests at heart, the people who would die for their child...

Just caretakers. And I think the schools think they employ us to do that.

They also think they are all doctors. They love to diagnose. "Jeremy's foot is itchy. It looks like a bad fungus." Which is something, of course, you can't ignore because even though you know that there is nothing wrong with the foot, you MUST take him to the pediatrician or face CPS. So you waste a couple hours of your time to be told there is nothing fungal going on there, and report back to the BIG BOSSES who think they own our kids, with a letter signed by the MD.

And they use the power of CPS to get what they think the child needs from us. New Shoes, New Glasses, New Braces, New Clothes...Medical Treatment. Psychiatric treatment...

I homeschooled one son for one year. I am not the kind of mom who can do that, but I wish I was.

I am my child's parent. I have NOT relegated that responsibility to the state or the schools. But it's futile. I've watched the atmosphere in schools toward parents change over the past 40 years. And change not for the best.