'Cause I'm A Pit Bull...

SHAME on you, Procter and Gamble > Pampers!

Procter & Gamble, the manufacturers of Pampers brand disposeable diapers, is facing a growing number of angry mothers.
Pampers recently released a new version of it's Cruisers and Swaddlers diapers, bragging that the new "DryMax" versions are now thinner and more absorbent. According to P&G, the DryMax versions use the same ingredients, but the old versions had an absorbent pulp, whereas the new DryMax diapers have the absorbent layer printed right into the lining of the diaper.
Parents by the thousands began complaining about the new diapers leaking badly, and causing terrible diaper rashes on their little ones' bottoms. Not only common diaper rashes, but many cited severe rashes with oozing watery burn-like blisters. Many called the diaper rashes "chemical burns" because in their estimation these burn-like rashes, being uncommon to their child and then suddenly appearing on their child coinciding with the DryMax debut, would seem to be caused by some chemical in the diapers. You would think P&G would be concerned about their diapers causing harm to infants, but instead they at first denied the complaints existed. I met a woman who complained to Pampers just after the DryMax debut, only to be told that hers was one of only 2 or 3 total complaints Pampers had received regarding DryMax. Later, as parents realized that Pampers was not only ignoring but even flat out denying their concerns, they turned to Consumer Affairs to file their complaints. A consumer alert was issued on the Pampers With DryMax. Still, Pampers did not heed their customers. If ignoring them doesn't make them go away, they must have decided, then we will call them liars and make it out like they are trying to frame us. So P&G began to outright attack the THOUSANDS of concerned mothers, calling the DryMax rash claims lies, saying that those rashes that DID occur would have anyway, DryMax or not, and those who are calling them "chemical burns" were coached to do so by a facebook group (with currently well over 8,000 members) made up of supporters of Pampers' competitors who are out to tarnish the Pampers name. According to the Wall Street Journal, Pampers is compiling a "Pampers Dishonesty Report" on this facebook group and anyone else on the World Wide Web who dares to speak out against the rash-causing DryMax diapers.

Seriously?! SHAME on you, Procter & Gamble! Shame! Your loyal customers' babies are in pain and they of course want the problem dealt with. Instead of fessing up like mature adults you first tried to sweep it under the rug and now you are ATTACKING the concerned parents?! I do not currently support any disposeable diaper company. In fact, the ONLY disposeables I successfully used on my first 2 children were Pampers Swaddlers and Cruisers. I am pregnant again and can tell you right now that I will NOT be buying Pampers for the new baby after seeing the horrendously dishonest way that P&G is treating concerned mothers like myself. You lost this customer not because of DryMax, but because of the most appalling and disgusting exaple of "customer care" that I have ever seen. I hope I'm not the only Mom who has NOT been affected by DryMax but whose sense of HONOR and HONESTY has been severely offended by the nasty and childish way P&G is handling this. I am taking a stand against buying any more Procter & Gamble diapers, and that includes Luvs, due to this gross mishandling of the DryMax complaints.

Sources
Facebook group:
Pampers bring back the OLD CRUISERS/SWADDLERS!
Wall Street Journal article:
Diaper Gripes Grow Louder for P&G
Consumer Affairs:
16 pages of Pampers DryMax complaints
MSNBC article:
US Consumer Product Safety Commission launches investigation into Pampers, DryMax

Feel-Good Theology

PART 1: Judge Not Lest Ye Be Judged
PART 2: Religion and Legalism
PART 3: God Bless The Pioneers of New Ideas
PART 4: Incorrectly Politically Correct
> PART 5: Feel-Good Theology
****************************
If you have not read the first 4 posts related to this one, especially Part 4, then I advise you click above to read them in order now before continuing so you have a full picture of what I'm talking about.

If someone elses beliefs, or them telling you their reasons why they made a choice, make you feel guilty or defensive for the choice YOU made, then you need to take a good hard look inside yourself and find out why. Because if you really were 100% confident of your choice then it wouldn't make you feel guilty for it just because someone else picked a different path. I don't care how many times someone gives me their reasons for NOT believing in God, it never makes one bit of impact on how much I LOVE JESUS and how thankful I am every day that I believe in Him and love Him and that He loves me! Because deep in my heart I know that choosing to love God was the right choice, I never have any guilt or doubt about whether or not that was the right choice. Ditto for circumcision. It doesn't matter what anyone else's reasons are for circumcising their son, hearing those reasons doesn't make me feel one iota uncomfortable, or guilty, or questioning whether it was the right choice that I did NOT circ my boy. Ditto for vaccinations. I so strongly believe that vaccines are harmful not only to individuals but to society as a whole that when someone tells me 952 reasons why it's so important to vaccinate, I've already worked them all out before ever making a choice so not a single one of those 952 reasons makes me feel guilty or question my choice- I have 952 reasons why it's so dangerous to vaccinate! I am 100% against abortion in ALL situations no matter what the circumstances- if it's a human it's got a soul and in God's eyes not only does it have all the same human rights as you or I, but it doesn't yet own the burden of hell-deserving sin that all adult humans own. Therefore no matter how many arguments or scenarios I hear about that excuse abortion, it doesn't make me feel guilty or unsure about my stance on abortion. I know what I believe. I know why I believe. I truely believe what I believe. So if I were to get all mad at someone for presenting a clear and complete explanation of why THEY believe what they believe regarding something in which I believe the opposite that they do, then that would be wrong of me. Firstly if I really was confident in my choice then it wouldn't hurt my decision to hear what they believe. Secondly to think it's my right to forbid them their responsibility to do what is right by standing up for what they believe in would be just as wrong. This does not exclude my countering their statement of belief with one of my own though. ;) It merely means that they have the moral duty to tell me why they believe they are right about it, as I likewise have the moral duty to tell people why I believe what I believe.

So, please, for all our sakes, beware the politically correct disease of "just shut-up" thinking that has poisoned every nook and cranny of our culture, from the White House to the Church to the alley on the wrong side of town to your own home. If you don't believe in it enough to stand up for it, then you have no business telling those who do to stop standing up for it. Believe what you believe, and LIVE IT. We're all human, we all slip up, but don't let it make you forget who you are and what you believe.

And always remember to say it with LOVE or it means nothing. Your motivation for telling people something goes so far toward whether they hear it or not. I too need to keep this in mind more when speaking.

1 Corinthians 13:1 If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

Incorrectly Politically Correct

PART 1: Judge Not Lest Ye Be Judged
PART 2: Religion and Legalism
PART 3: God Bless The Pioneers of New Ideas
> PART 4: Incorrectly Politically Correct
PART 5: Feel-Good Theology
****************************

To get a complete picture of what I'm trying to say, you should read parts 1-3 as listed above before moving on to this one. :)

I have been blessed that in most of the things our family has chosen, I am not among the first "radicals" to walk this road and so it is therefore pretty easy for me to find support. But there are some new concepts that I'm apparently one of a very small, nearly nonexistant portion of the population to believe during my own little piece in history. Like the politically correct thing. I have actually never met anyone (yes NEVER met ANYONE) who didn't believe to some degree that it's wrong to tell other people if they're doing something you consider wrong because it might step on the toes of their culture or religion or thier personal code of conduct. That it's wrong to offend anyone so we should all just let everyone else think say and do anything they want to without making it known that we feel they are in the wrong, lest we hurt anyone's feelings. Now if you've read the earlier post that I've now dubbed Part 1, then you have an idea of where I'm going with this next.

If someone is doing something that you think could harm them or their kids it's wrong not to say something because you're too busy trying not to encroach on anyone's beliefs. If I had a religious, cultural, or personal belief that stated that the safest place for my 20 month old was in the front seat of the car without a carseat, would you be willing to do what's right and inform me of the dangers of that so that I would at least have a more balanced information base before deciding what to do or would you refrain from it because it would just be so wrong to tell anyone that something they've chosen to do might not be the best choice?! At least if you've warned me then it's not your fault if I get in a car accident and my kid dies, but if you never warned me then it could be partially your fault- you could have saved a life but chose to be politically correct instead. Once you've presented the other side then you are no longer responsible for their decision, and hey there IS the chance that something could happen in which the only safe place for my 20 month old IS in the front seat of my car with no carseat! So it's the person's choice in the end, but it's our responsibility to tell someone if something you think they are doing is potentially dangerous and then you will not be responsible if something bad happens because you chose to kiss-up instead of do what's right. The BIBLE (James 4:17) says that if you know what is the right thing to do and you don't do it, then you're sinning. If you know you should say something but don't want to offend anyone so you don't say anything, then you have sinned. What THEY do with the info is THEIR choice and they have the right to choose whatever they choose, and maybe they are right and you are wrong after all, but if you really believe what you claim to then act like it. I'm not saying a continual harassment of this person each time you see them, but I AM saying that you have the responsibility to present to them what you believe is right and a clear explanation of WHY one time before you have the right to wash your hands of the situation.

If you believe something, then you stand up for it. Do you believe it's wrong to protest at someone's feuneral? If you saw people protesting at a feuneral it would make you mad and you would be talking about how wrong it is, becuase you really believe it's wrong. You wouldn't bite your tongue because you might offend the race, religion, or culture who was protesting it. You would say that it's wrong, period. If your concern over not forcing your anti-feuneral-protest beliefs on anyone outweighs your concern for the wrongness of the harassment of the greif struck family then you are not genuinely deep down convinced that it's actually flat out wrong, are you? Because if you knew in your heart without a shadow of a doubt that it's wrong, then nothing would keep you from defending the family and speaking out against feuneral protestors- not even concern over possibly stepping on the protestors (or their supporters') toes.

If you don't have a stance one way or another on a topic, like say you don't think it's wrong either way to recycle or not recycle, then you would have no business trying to convince someone else that they should or shouldn't recycle. I'm not saying that if they're asking you can't refer them to something you read somewhere on the subject or that if you're still working it out in your own mind you can't be involved in a discussion about it in the interest of settling your own mind about it one way or the other. What I'm saying is that if you don't really believe in an absolute about something then you have no place helping/encouraging/or demanding anyone else make up their mind about it until you have your own mind made up. Likewise if you have no firm belief either way then you have no business telling anyone who DOES have a firm belief one way or the other about it to hold their tongue. You telling someone not to stand up for what they believe in is just as much of a sin as it would be for them to not stand up for what they believe in. I believe that to not defend what you believe to be right is like denying that you believe it at all.
In the Bible it doesn't say that to be saved we need to Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and don't deny that you do if someone asks, and thou shalt be saved. No, it says in Romans 10:9-10 "That if you confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved." It doesn't say that just not denying it will suffice, it states that you must actively verbally confess your beliefs. I think that if it's that important to God that we don't just merely not deny Him, but that we actively confess Him instead, then it must be an important component in having a belief. If believing something inside and just not denying it verbally was enough to make a belief a true belief, then it would have been good enough for God.

On the flip side harassing someone after the fact is IMO WRONG. If they have already made thier choices and something bad happened, for you to go and say you told them so or to then pick that moment to enlighten them on your beliefs and why they "chose wrong," then I believe that is cruel, arrogant, and selfish. There is a time and a place for everything and the time and place to tell someone what they would have could have should have done is NOT when they are greiving over it with that very track of coulda should woulda guilt playing on repeat in their head. It is NOT helpful to tell someone why you believe this or that is wrong when the opportunity for them to benefit from it has passed. Reminds me of Job's "friends" tormenting him after he lost everything. Just because some of the stuff they said was true didn't give them the right to be jerks - I think Job already knew that God had a reason for letting this happen, he didn't need to hear his healthy happy friends tell him stuff he already knew and belittle his problems. If you tell someone they shoulda wore a seatbelt after they are already paralyzed from the neck down, all it does is cause them pain and the evil one just loves it when you kick them while they're down and rub salt in their wound. It's too late to help them with pro-seatbelt sentiments so all you're doing is hurting them. THAT is the right time to shut up and be supportive of them as a person. Never endorse their having done something you believe wrong of course, because that would be DENYING what you supposedly believe in, but after the fact is not the time for an explanation of why you believe what you believe regarding that subject unless they ask.

Please click on Part 5 listed at the top of this post to read the conclusion of this batch of thoughts. :)

God Bless the Pioneers of "New" Ideas

PART 1: Judge Not Lest Ye Be Judged
PART 2: Religion and Legalism
> PART 3: God Bless The Pioneers of New Ideas
PART 4: Incorrectly Politically Correct
PART 5: Feel-Good Theology
****************************

(I began this post as a single post, but I felt the need to say so much more that I wound up dividing it into several posts to fit in everything that was on my heart to say. Then I realized that if read as a series including 2 of my previous posts it would more fully explain what I'm trying to say. So that's how yesterdays post grew into the behemoth series I'm reposting it as.)

I'm sure some think I'm totally radical after reading my two earlier posts listed above as parts 1 and 2, but I feel like someone who has been half asleep and am finally waking up! It's so easy to overlook things that are the cultural norm when holding things up to the light of the Word. We would think to pray and read about something that there is controversy active in our country about, because we know that there are two sides to it and therefore know that there's a decision to be made about what we think about it. The things that are a cultural norm however are the tough ones. The things that EVERYONE (or almost everyone) believes are different however. It doesn't click in our brains that there is possibly anything wrong with it because everyone and their dog thinks one way. For instance celebrating hollidays. The whole world celebrates hollidays. Have you ever stopped to wonder if God wants us to celebrate hollidays? For most of us I think the answer is likely no. It's just something our timeperiod and culture does. Everyone does it. So we don't think to question it. What about birth control? I know that 15 years ago I didn't know and had never even heard of a single soul who questioned the "fact" that birth control was okay and not only a valid option for all but it was important to use it to be a good steward of your lifestyle. But there were a few crazy radicals who woke up from mere acceptance and realized that just because it's the cultural norm, just because it's endorsed by the church, doesn't mean that it's necessarily what God endorses! And so they loooked into it and now, I'm sure you know of the Duggars on tv if nobody else, I think we've all heard of or know someone who has come to the conclusion that birth control is not only NOT actually endorsed by God, but may even be AGAINST what God does endorse. If a "crazy" few hadn't questioned the cultural norm, then more and more people would not have questioned it until quiverfull is now a growing movement that is surrounded by much controversy but is gaining more and more acceptance. The same goes for homeschooling. Back in the 70's and 80's if you homeschooled, people reacted with horror and called CPS! Most adults hadn't ever thought about the existance of homeschooling, let alone the possibility of it being a viable option. If a "crazy" few hadn't kept fighting for the right to do what they felt was the better way to educate their kids, while the rest of the world scorned and looked down on them for something THEY believed was the FAR INFERIOR way to educate children, then homeshooling would not be so widespread today and those of us who have chosen to homeschool would still be hiding our children during school hours and warding off visits from CPS.
*As an aside, I have nothing against teachers and it hurts me when public school teachers automatically assume that I hate them or think they're evil just because I homeschool. This is so far from the truth! I think the SYSTEM is a flawed system run by an atheistic new-world government by forcing people who do not believe in it to pay for it and then using it to brainwash our kids right out of their faith in God (among other things). The teachers themselves, yes, they work for the flawed machine, but they are overworked and underpaid and I have the greatest respect for anyone who can teach a bunch of disrespectful and troubled kids who are not their own. I can teach my kids because I love them and their best interests are always at the front of my mind. Other people's kids though I don't know if I would have that unique quality to see through their behavioural issues and love them enough to teach them as though they were my own. So while I am against sending my kids to the big government atheist machine, it does NOT mean that if you are a teacher that I have any less respect for you than I would for a fellow homeschooling mother! And if you're a Christian teacher in a public school, then I pray God grants you grace and blessings to shine for HIM because YOU might be the only Jesus some of those kids ever see and I know how hard the government machine tries to restrict you so you won't be able to shine. And to my knowlege, MOST homeschool mothers have nothing against teachers and are hurt and confused as to why public school teachers assume that our choice to homeschool means that we hate them.*

I have been blessed that in most of the things our family has chosen, I am not among the first "radicals" to walk this road and so it is therefore pretty easy for me to find support. (Now, there is nothing new under the sun, and there was a time when things like birth control and public schools were unheard of concepts as well, because "the only new thing is history we have not learned." When I refer to something as being a new concept, I am meaning that it is a new concept to the people who are alive in this current piece of time which I'm talking about.) There are things that are not so widely progressed yet though that are more difficult. Home birthing for instance is accepted and supported in some US states but in others it is something that midwives can go to jail for and finding a homebirth midwife is actually done through an underground network. Thankfully in my state Midwives don't have to hide, for which I'm thankful. But there are some new concepts that I'm apparently one of a very small, nearly nonexistant portion of the population to believe during my own little piece in history. Like the politically correct thing. I have actually never met anyone (yes NEVER met ANYONE) who didn't believe to some degree that it's wrong to tell other people if they're doing something you consider wrong because it might step on the toes of their culture or religion or thier personal code of conduct. That it's wrong to offend anyone so we should all just let everyone else think say and do anything they want to without making it known that we feel they are in the wrong, lest we hurt anyone's feelings. Now if you've read the earlier post that I've now dubbed Part 1, then you have an idea of where I'm going with this next.

Religion and Legalism

Legalism is a bit more complex than some people think I believe. What might seem legalistic to some might not be, or vice versa. Some might see me as a legalist because I now wear a headcovering, when that's just not so. It's something I struggled against and ignored and excused and took lightly at various stages of my life. Now for the Amish (most of them) I believe it is legalistic because they do it because that's the rules and they have their rules about what types of headgear are deemed headcoverings and what types are not deemed to be headcoverings... for instance the Bible says that a man should never pray with his head covered and a woman should always cover her head when praying- The Amish interpret that to mean that the woman must ALWAYS cover her head in readiness for prayer but there is a double standard. Amish men wear hats which the Amish have decided are not "headcoverings" by their customs! So for women the passage is taken literally and constantly but for men it is taken neither literally nor constantly -they made up new rules to suit themselves. Amish woment don't wear a headcovering or not wear it out of a heartfelt leading from The Lord, they wear it because those are the rules. That is legalistic. Again, I don't think that all of them are this way, just that alot, likely most, are because this is how they are raised. I'm sure some do what is right for God rather than because of the Ordnung. God bless them for it! It's very hard to find a right attitude about something you have been raised to do religiously or legalistically because you have some internal sense of pride in the fact that you always do it right. God looks at your motives though and if your motive is pride and/or habit- not good. (I wonder is it better to do the right thing for the wrong reason like the Amish or the wrong thing for the right reason... I don't know.) I wear a headcovering now because after all that running around it and toying with it for so long (putting my hands over my ears and making excuses as to why it didn't apply to me or to my time period or culture or...), I finally got into a deeper relationship with God and then it CLICKED that it wasn't about the rules (following all the rules just because they are the rules is called RELIGION and religion is legalism! I don't want Religion, I want a Relationship!), it was about something I do for my creator to say, "I love you and I respect you!" Just like you don't have to get hubby's opinion before you go places or buy things, but you do it because you want him to know that you respect and love him. If he were to force you to do that or you do it out of fear then that's like legalism, but when you do it from your heart it is not legalism, it's something truly beautiful - a sweet relationship!

In the Old Testament, they attained salvation by legalism. They followed the rules and made a sacrifice (another rule) to attone for any rule-breaking. In the New Testament, we were freed from legalism by the ultimate sacrifice of Love. The parallel in our personal lives; our relationship with HIM replaces legalism with Love. We're still following the same rules, but a right motive conveys love, a wrong one conveys pride. As a parent, which means more to you: when your kids do what you tell them just because it's the rules, or when you see that they are doing what is right because they love you?

PART 1: Judge Not Lest Ye Be Judged
> PART 2: Religion and Legalism
PART 3: God Bless The Pioneers of New Ideas
PART 4: Incorrectly Politically Correct
PART 5: Feel-Good Theology
****************************

Kady

It was the end of February in 2004. My husband was in the military. Stationed in Hawaii sounds great but I was far from friends and family, all alone in a new place, while my husband was deployed for weeks to months at a time. We had been married for nearly 2 years and decided that we should get a dog. We were waiting to have kids, and I was so lonely all the time and it's nervewracking being home alone all the time. We found an ad online for Sharpei puppies and went to see them. The store was this run down little skeezy place and the pups didn't look very much Sharpei. The man who showed them to us was either having a hard time with the english language or playing it up to avoid giving us any real answers. He told us all the pups were female. As soon as he was not looking I checked and there were 3 males and 1 female. He also told us the pups were Bull Terrier and Sharpei cross but got really nervous when we asked if he had a picture. We were young and naieve, knew nothing about puppy mills or dogfighting or pitbulls. But when I held that female pup I knew I had to have her. So we bought her. The creepy man gave her what he said was her first vaccine for free and my husband shoved the wrapper of it into his pocket. As we were leaving we asked him about the pups age. The ad had said something like 9 weeks but they did NOT look that old. He said 5 weeks. He'd earlier told us he'd had the pups for about a week already. It made me angry that someone took pups away from their mother at 4 weeks old. Nutritively they need their mother for 5 weeks and psychologically for 8 weeks. When we got in the truck with the pup we read the vaccine wrapper. It had been for parvo (!!) which is NOT the first vax and isn't supposed to be given to such a young puppy.
We named her Kady (pronounced Katie) and she was our baby. Everyone who met her said how smart she was and I would laugh and say I had nothing better to do all day at home alone than teach her tricks! But the too-early weaning and parvo vax did damage. Her immune system was shot. Poor dog made it to a couple months old before her hair started falling out and she was itching all the time. The nice vet we took her to said she had Demodex. Unfortunatley the treatment he tried made her better for only a short while.
Kady grew and grew. Her rolly polly Labrador-pup-with-wrinkles looking body changed. Her ears began to stick up halfway and then flop over and stick straight out to the sides. People started to ask what breed she was and when we told them she was supposed to be Bull Terrier (think the Target mascot) and Sharpei (the wrinkle dogs that look like a fuzzy towel) they would say how strange because she looks like a Pit Bull puppy! Now I had heard all my life how horrible pitbuills are, that they will just bite you for no reason and if they bite you you will die and they have locking jaws and laser beam eyes and come from a hell realm blah blah blah- I'm sure you've heard the rumors. Well I was quite upset that people thought my amazing sweet wonderful little dog was one of THOSE things! I denied it vehemently.
After just a few months my husband was deployed for half a year yet again so instead of staying lonely in Hawaii, we put our stuff in storage and I flew home to my parents farm on the mainland with Kady. Her health was declining though and after a local hicksville vet telling me I was causing her suffering by allowing her to live, my mom and I started looking up alternative treatments online.
Kady kept getting worse and one day she had pnumonia. In my research I'd learned alot about Demodex and had learned that dogs don't die from Demodex itself- they die of a secondary infection due to dogs with Demodex being immune compromised. Her pnumonia got worse and I had to carry her outside to do her business and then carry her back inside. No matter how much pain she was in and how sick or hairless she never growled or snapped at me. All her hair was gone and her skin looked like raw hamburger bleeding and scabbed and she labored to breathe and I knew this was her last night. I thought that horrid compassionless vet was right- I should be kind and put her down. I couldn't do it though because despite her being on her deathbed she would lick my hand when I was close enough to her face and she was still drinking water. I put a bowl of stew in front of her and she drank the broth out of it. She could barely lift her head but there was still a happy spark in her eye and a lick for me when she saw me. So as long as SHE refused to give up, neither could I. But I knew it was her last night. No way could she survive. I stayed up with her all night, laying on a blanket by her and dozing in and out, petting her and telling her what a good dog she was. I wanted to be there for her when she died.
But she didn't die. She stayed the same the next day, but the day after that she was standing up some. The day after that she could walk partway to the door herself. The day after that she wanted to lay outside in the sunshine for a while before coming back in.
Kady had lowpoints and high points but we finally found some herbal treatments that helped her through when she had a bad time of it. She began to get less and less sick each time. At a year old she was doing well, with her sick times being very manageable and her well times being longer. When she was about 3 years old was her highpoint. She didn't lose much hair during a sick point and just got a little itchy and acted fine and happy.

In the course of my research on Demodex when Kady was a puppy I kept running across things saying it was common in Sharpeis and Pit Bulls. I started to actually do research on dog breeds and when I saw a picture of a Bull Terrier I knew that's not what my dog's other half was. She was half Sharpei for sure with her cute little fuzzy wrinkles, but the other half was not Bull Terrier. They were cute, but she'd never looked like one. No, those random people had been right. And they had not been trying to insult my dog. I now saw the other side clearly. She was half American Pit Bull Terrier! It actually made sense. In the years we lived in Hawaii we saw Pit Bulls everywhere. Everyone had a back yard full of Pit Bulls in Hawaii. I met an old chubby brindle pit bull mix and a purebred rednose American Pit Bull Terrier puppy in Hawaii before we'd gotten Kady and they were both so sweet that after all the bad I'd heard about Pit Bulls I just assumed the two I met were the rare exception. And Kady looked just like an American Pit Bull Terrier except with a few extra wrinkles. Then when I researched I found that the majority of things said about pitbulls were just stupid urban legends. I learned that:
-The term "pitbull" is used by the general public to refer to a handfull of seprate and different bully-breed dogs that people lump together and call a "pitbull" due to miseducation and paranoia, so when something says a pitbull bit someone it could have been one of like 5 different breeds or a mutt mix or something not even a bully-breed at all that someone called a pitbull just because it bit someone.
-Despite the fact that "pitbull" is like 5 different breeds together, statistically you are about as likely to get bitten by a Golden Retreiver as you are by any of the combined category of "pitbulls" and that statistically the dog most likely to bite is the Labrador Retreiver, followed closely by several popular small-breed and toy dogs.
-The temperament of the American Pit Bull Terrier and it's close cousin the Staffordshire Bull Terrier is very loyal, tolerant, and loving. Everywhere reliable that I read it said they are wonderful family dogs, great with children. Can tolerate insane amounts of abuse before they snap, if at all - which is heartbreakingly why they make good fighting dogs.
-I learned about dogfighting and puppy mills and the things they do to Pit Bulls would break your heart and make you want to hunt down those responsible and do to them the horrible things they do to these poor dogs. And yet this sweet and gentle breed(s) is statistically much less likely to bite you than a Lab, even though they have much more reason to hate humans!
-Dogs are like anything else: they are a product of their environment and upbringing, not just their breed. Dogs have the mentality of a human toddler. If you locked a human toddler in a box, a yard, a room alone for 8+ hours a day almost every day... if you chained a human toddler in the back yard... well that child would be resentful and could snap. But if you raise them with love, interaction, take them with you on vacation, keep them safe and warm in the house... well then they become loyal and true family members who will stay by your side loving and defending you until their last breath.
Kady was a perfect ambassador for her breed. She was a horrible puppy, in need of CONSTANT mental stimulation to keep her from becoming bored and destructive. When we first got her she would cower and growl and snap if you moved too fast in her direction, like she may have been abused in those 5 weeks of her life before we got her. But she grew up to be the sweetest gentlest dog! 49 stocky, wrinkley pounds of pure love. She won over people who had previously never met a real pitbull and were of the opinion I had been at first- that they were some evil psychodog.
My husband got out of the military and we moved. Got a new vet who said that some dogs with Demodex never get cured but there are ways to manage it so the dog lives a happy life. This was the third vet. The first and third vets were very nice and helpful. The nowheresville middle one was the only one who said nasty things. The nowheresville vet is the same vet that I saw drag a goat with a broken leg into his clinic by it's tail as it's bleating in pain when I was a child so no surprise the jerk would rather have put her down than help her.
When I was pregnant with Chicklet I heard too many irritating times things like "Are you going to get rid of the dog?" and "You know you can't have that kind of dog around children, right? They snap around children." and "Aren't you worried she'll hurt the baby?" But I knew 2 things they did not. One, I knew the truth about Pit Bulls. And Two, I knew that responsible owners don't allow the dog and new baby to be alone together and don't allow the baby to continually hurt the dog, even accidentally or innocently pulling hair/tail/ears. And I knew my dog. I had trained her well. She could do a variety of common tricks and I would occasionally get in her face while she was eating or give her a nice juicy bone and then make her give it willingly back to me since she was a tiny puppy. By the time my daughter was crawling, Kady was trained very well not to be aggressive about her food. Chicklet would make a beeline for the dogfood and begin splashing the water or trying to eat the dogfood and the dog would not growl at her, but would instead give me this pathetic intense doggie look that said, "Mooom! She's playing in my food again! Make her stop!" And of course I always promptly put a stop to it because it is just as important for a child to learn to respect a dog as it is for a dog to learn to respect a child. A dog should not be made to take the abuse of constantly having a baby in her face while she's eating. That is just asking for long-term resentment. If the dog knows, as Kady did, that she must submit to humans getting in her bowls and in her face occasionally, but is confident that it will be made right promptly, then that dog will be happy to be non-aggressive with food. This is something that is best done from puppyhood.

So my dear baby daughter and my dear fur-baby loved each other as I knew they would. When I was in labor, Kady followed me around as if attached to my ankle. When baby Chicklet would cry, the dog would pace back and forth between me and Chicklet until I had calmed the baby. When I was sick she would lay on my feet. She loved to play soccer with the neighborhood kids, until their moms found out the dog they'd been playing with was one of those pitbull dogs and forbid them to go near her. Her favorite game was tug of war with old socks... she loved it when we would pick her up by the sock and she would dangle from it with her teeth, tail wagging furiously and paws paddling air excitedly. When we let go she'd proudly shake the sock before depositing the disgustingly slobbery thing back in our lap, begging us to do it again.

But in her 5th year, sweet Kady began getting sick again. And she got sicker and sicker each time. Like her first year in reverse. Finally she did not get better. She was missing patches of hair, scabby and itchy, and acting down for more than a month. Then she started throwing up and had diarrhea all over the house. She wouldn't go outside through the doggie door, but instead would run to us shaking and vomit or defecate at our feet. I tried a whole slew of new treatments, and with the last one as with the first one it didn't work- one morning toward the end of May 2009 I found her laying in a puddle of excrement. She barely acknowleged me. It was time to let her go.
Dear sweet Kady lived 5 1/4 years. She was sweet, loving and loyal. She was sick at the beginning and the end, but happy and healthy and vibrant for years in the middle (so there, nasty compassionless vet from nowheresville!) She wanted to live, and so she did. Her heart, her spirit, were strong and true. She was a fighter. But her immune system was weak. 5 years were all she had in her, but she put her all into those 5 years. She was so smart and so opposite of the untrue urban legends I'd previously believed about her breed. She was an undercover ambassador for Pit Bulls who snuck into our lives in the guise of a Bull Terrier and educated and changed our hearts. She left us proud to have been owners of a Pit Bull and finally educated on the truth of the breed and better pet owners for the experience. She made a mark on all of us and will not be forgotten.
Some days Chicklet, who was 2 1/2 when Kady died and is now 3 1/4, remembers her. When it happened we told her that Kady lives with Jesus now. She asked every day "Where's Kady?," then every week, then rarely. We thought she'd forgotten. Then not too long ago we were in the WalMart parking lot after dark and as we were buckling the kids in their carseats a dog started barking somewhere in the parking lot. Chicklet exclaimed, "Daddy! It sounds like Kady! Daddy it's Kady! You hear it? Sounds like Kady!" We told her gently that it isn't Kady, Kady lives with Jesus now. She, and the distant dog, were quiet for a few seconds. Then the dog began to bark again and Chicklet strained against her carseat harness and insisted, "Mama!!!! It's Kady! Oh it's Kady... Daddy you hear it is Kady! We have to go get her! Daddy we have to get her!" She kept repeating 'We have to get her!' desperately for a minute while I tried to reassure her that it was not Kady, Kady is safe with Jesus. Finally she quieted and I turned back to the front windshield and silently cried the rest of the way home. I miss Kady too.




~*~

"Keepers at Home"

Before you read the rest of this you should go read THIS POST because my post here is in agreement with that one and reading that one first will compliment and clarify what I'm talking about here.

I think that in the Bible in Titus 2, the phrase "keepers at home," the part that people aren't tracking with is not the HOME part. It's pretty much agreed that the meaning of that is that women need to make sure their house is kept up. I think it's the KEEPERS part that people don't understand... at least it was for me at one point. People see "keepers at home" and think "housekeeper" as in maid, servant, whose duty is to cook and clean and carry out orders. Well if that's all a woman's good for then count me out! Who would sign on for that? It sounds like some sort of mindless slave. The thing people can't see is that "keepers at home" doesn't mean a maid. It means a gatekeeper of the home. A guardian of the environment which we call home. Being a keeper at home is a high calling indeed. It's not a maid, it's so much more beautiful than that! The Keeping part means guiding, guarding, and tending. It doesn't mean merely cleaning. We are to guide our children as they learn and grow physically, mentally, and spiritually. We are to guard against bad things coming into our home- like a gatekeeper keeps the enemy out of the city, so we should keep the ultimate enemy from entering our homes. We are to guard our home environment and our children from evil influences. And we are to tend our family like a gardener tends his vegetables. We are to nurture and encourage our little sprouts, and fertilize our relationships, prune out bad attitudes/clutter/anything that chokes the life out of a family like weeds, and cultivate good soil for a family to grow and thrive in by blessing our families with our attitudes and the work of our hands. The work of a keeper at home is not mindless servitude. It's an exciting and challenging daily adventure, a challenge to guard and bless those that we love. Being a keeper at home would seem to me to be more focused on being a spiritual thing, and is not just a physical do-the-dishes thing. Of course having a tidy house and dinner planned out will improve the spiritual atmosphere of the home, but that's not the whole package. It's just the icing on the cake.

Horrified speechless!

Okay this:
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1250064768819

is part of why I am homeschooling. I am absolutely horrified speechless.

"I am the LORD your GOD, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your GOD, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate Me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love Me and keep My commandments." -Exodus 20:2-6

"But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea." -Matthew 18:6

When a teacher can get away with writing praise and worship songs to a human leader, and the principal nor the parents say boo about it, we are in a world of trouble. Or maybe 4 generations of a world of trouble.

Sunday, September 20th, 2009

I am a tad bit busy this afternoon and also a wee bit short on inspiration due to being up with kiddos all night and feeling quite tired. So I hope you will forgive me, instead of writing a new post right now I'm just going to refer you to a post from one of my other blogs for your daily dose of fresh reading material. ;)


Some believe that once you're 'saved' you're saved no matter what you do afterward. I just read a comment on another blog that said the person didn't get, "...how Jesus would allow someone who committed unthinkable crime and denied Him all their life, get into heaven JUST for saying a simple prayer when he was 8." Well I agree- that pretty much sums up why I don't believe the once-saved, always-saved philosophy. But on the opposite end of the spectrum I don't believe that God yanks your name out of the Book of Life every time you make a mistake and you have to say the sinners prayer again to get put back on the nice list. I also don't believe loss of salvation has anything to do with you getting snached away from God, but that you leave Him of your own accord. So here's what I get out of my Bible on the subject;
Saying a prayer in and of itself will not get you to heaven. Good works will not get you to heaven. For by FAITH through grace we are saved, not by WORKS lest any man should boast. That means just being a good person won't get you to heaven. Why? Because ALL people have sinned. Every one. The wages of sin is death - that means any sin - but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus. The wages of robbing a bank is death. The wages of murdering is death. The wage of thinking a lustful thought is death. The wage of sassing your mama is death. All sin is sin. Sin cannot enter heaven because God is holy and sin cannot be in heaven with the holy God. So if you sin, even an eensy weensie bit, you cannot go to heaven. And obviously everyone on this earth has sinned at some point whether they realize it or not. So the only way to heaven is to have Someone pay your way in for you, since the price of a ticket to Paradise is one pure and blameless, sinless human life. And there is only One who can pay that price for you - Jesus. So you have to believe that Jesus is who He says He is because if He's not, then He can't afford your ticket either.
And if you truely believe that Jesus is Who He says He is, then you will want to please Him. You will be thankful for him paying the price you could never pay so you could get into heaven.
Say you're waiting at the gates of the Superduperbowl, and the tickets are so expensive that there's only one man on the planet rich enough to buy tickets- the only son of the owner of the Superduperbowl arena. If you try to go through the gates without a ticket, you would be arrested. So say someone comes up to you and offers to pay for your ticket. He says he's the son, the only man on earth who can afford your ticket and he wants to pay for your way in. You won't accept the gift if you don't believe he is who he says he is, right? You would mock him and laugh and say, "Hey no way dude, I have a plan to sneak in or bribe or beg or whatever because you can't possibly be THE SON! Haha! You're probably just trying to make me look like a fool!" But if you DO believe he is who he says he is, you would feel so grateful that he would do this for you asking nothing in return that you would make conversation with him, try to get to know him, try to please him, try to express to him somehow how very grateful you are! You would want to tell everyone you met about how wonderful this son is! You would want your friends to get into the game with you! You would be so happy and excited! You would not leave his side and if you did, if you stumbled or forgot yourself and acted like an ingrate or were rude to him, you would apologize, ask forgiveness, and keep trying to do better, thankful all the way that he did not go back on his offer every time you messed up!
Now lets try a different hypothetical. Let's say you didn't really believe he was the one he said he was, but you pretended to. You might have even convinced yourself at the moment that he was the one, but then you got to doubting and overthinking it and decided to go your own way. Or you did believe at first but then decided that making nice was too much trouble, you'd rather go off with your friends and do what makes you feel good and hang out with people who like to bash the son with words and actions. If you are not with HIM at the gate because after accepting his offer you decided to go your own way, how can he pay for your ticket? He can't! You left him! Or what if someone tells you he can pay your way but they are not the son. Maybe they claim to be, maybe they claim to be someone else of power who can get you through the gate. Well no matter how much you believe in them, how good and nice you are, and how far you follow them, if they can't pay the price of one sinless, 100% pure human life for your ticket, then you're not getting in that gate.
Does that make sense? If you believe in Jesus, you will want to do what is right to please Him. If you fall he's not going to change His mind and leave you there alone of course. He'll hold out His hand to you to help you back up. But if you decide to stay on the ground and not get up, or go your own way, or follow someone who cannot pay the price, then you're not going to be able to get in that gate! The sinner's prayer isn't a wristband for the county fair. The event IS HEAVEN; the *journey* there isn't what we're buying a ticket for! The journey is for getting to know the One who is paying our way. Because if you don't know Him by the time you get to the gate, you won't have a ticket.

Terrible-Twos (Project No-TV!!)

My Chicklet, who as you know by now is 2 years and 11 months old, has been going through one of those phases which most parents cringe at the mere mention of... The Terrible-Twos!! I always swore I would never be THAT mom with THAT child throwing a fit in WalMart. Well I'm sure you're sitting there snickering at that comment... Yes, I was THAT mom with my dear girl turned into a raving lunatic in the middle of a shopping expedition. And I cried too as soon as I got in the car.


My dear darling Chicklet has always been very strong willed. She can tantrum with the best of them! She has even tried beating her own head against the wall once or twice. We tried everything to stop the bad behavior. She was just getting worse and worse and nothing I was doing was helping. I remember a time when she was only like this when she was tired, but more recently it got to be a constant thing. It was horrible. I cried, where is my sweet girl who was always smiling? Always trying to help me? Always eager to learn and wanting to please me? Where did she go?! 

I started thinking back to when the behavior issues started. I mean, there were naughty episodes as young as when she was a tiny baby, but we dealt with it and moved on. When the real nastiness, the real stubborn willfullness came on, was I think when I was pregnant with Bug. I have terribly rough pregnancies. When I was pregnant with Bug I remember bawling and praying because I was unable to do anything but be miserable. I took good care of Chicklet physically, but I was so sick and in so much pain that I was not there for her in other ways. I didn't play with her. I had a hard time interacting with her if it required moving from my chair. I started having Dora DVD's on all the time so she wouldn't start crying when I would lurch out of my chair and stagger to the bathroom to empty my stomach. She learned alot of good stuff from Dora, but it wasn't a good substitute for mother-daughter time.
When Bug was born, it was a while before I felt more myself and was playing with the kids again. Actually with both kids it took until they were about 10 months old before I started being able to keep up with basic housework and do fun things with them again. Before that I was so dead on my feet exhausted I didn't do much beyond changing diapers and feeding them. I know it sounds horrible. I took good care of them physically, I just wasn't able to play with them or converse with them like they need.
As soon as I could I started playing with the kids again. Including them and narrating to them as I went on about my day. I was teaching them things and singing with them all the time. I started noticing that Chicklet's behavior problems changed. She was tantruming less. But it didn't stop. In fact after a while she started getting worse again. I was paying close attention and noticed something.
She was constantly quoting movie lines. ALL the time. She'd be playing with her toys and start going on, "Oh no Boots, we can't ride on the brown leaves! They're falling apart! We have to ride on the GREEN leaves! Say Verde!" She would be coloring and say, "This is your badness level... unlooloolee high for someone your size." She would zoom around the house yelling, "Abort! Abort! Disengage! There are children aboard! I repeat, there are children aboard!" She would be eating lunch and say, "I'm not happy, Bob. NOT HAPPY." One day in the car she was mumbling to herself and I was listening. I heard, "...mumblemumble...Nemo you get back here RIGHT now you hear me! I'm going to count...mumblemumble...ahhh! ahhh! Nemo! Nemo! No no! Has anyone seen a boat?!...mumblemumble...OOF! ...mumblemumble...A boat? I saw a boat! It passed by not too long ago. mumble...follow me!..mumblemumble...'Ello! My name's Bruce! ...mumblemumble...Doing? We're not doing anything. In fact we're not even here... mumblemumble... trust a shark...mumblemumble...a little get-together I'm having. Whaddaya say?..."

It was at this point I decided that letting her watch one thing a day was obviously too much television. When the child's mind is that good that she can see Finding Nemo all of 6 times over the coarse of 6 months and then quote half the movie off the top of her head, I need to be finding a better use for that amazing memory.

The real eye-opener came about a month ago though, when she started quoting to me when she was having a bad attitude. Instead of falling on the floor screaming and crying like before, now she would fall on the floor and viciously kick, hit, throw, and beat anything within reach. Then she would curl up and bawl, "Weemememememememememememeeeee!" It was so annoying! It was like babytalk while tantruming. And then it clicked. She was being Lilo having her tantrum and then mumbling incoherently while Nani was trying to talk to her. She was being Stitch destroying things. She was being Mr. Incredible throwing his boss through the wall. She was being Nemo doing what his dad said not to. She was being Marlin yelling and grouching. She was doing exactly what kids do; being what she saw.

I talked to my husband about my observations. We had already cut the kid tv down to 3 movies or Doras a week plus Saturday morning toons with Daddy, but it obviously wasn't enough. We decided to cut out all tv and movies.

I think the problems started when I was sooo tired from my pregnancy with Bug that I was not able to give Chicklet the quality interaction she needed. The TV became her friend to replace Mommy while Mommy was too busy hunched over the toilet throwing up. And as long as that TV-friend was still holding that place in her life, I was at war with it for her heart. So I decided a good start to winning back my place as her best friend was to get rid of the competition.

One week later it was like she was a different child. Instead of quoting Nemo, I caught her repeating things I'd told her. She asked me what does N say. I told her N says nnnnnn and the rest of the day she kept repeating in a singsong voice, "N say nnnnn!"

I continued to notice positive changes. Less tantrums. Shorter tantrums. BOTH kids were happier in general, calmer. She had been boycotting naps before but now she would take one once in a while.

Then I decided it was okay to let them watch DVDs that have no talking, like Baby Einstein. Chicklet's naps went out the window again. And worse, that little bit of give for Baby Einstein was enough to make Mama backslide. I slipped. I gave in. I let her watch a "real" movie - one with talking. And it all unravelled. Tantrums galore. Attitude in bulk. Speaking in movie quotes.

Mama messed up.

So I'm getting back on the horse as of about a week ago. Here's what I've noticed since I cut out the TV again:
Chicklet's taking naps again most of the time. Even when she does not take one she still seems more refreshed than back in TV days.
Again less and shorter tantrums from both kids.
Less movie quoting.

Ah but then today Daddy slipped up and let me sleep in while he watched a movie with the kids. Uh-oh...

Chicklet cried and screamed and acted out all day.

Tomorrow is a new day! Gotta get back off the TV wagon- again.


So there you have it. Part 1 of the no-tv project. I will keep you updated as to how it goes! :) So far I'm loving the results!

Update HERE.

Gov't Schools...

"Government schools are killing America":

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=107327

My take:
It's not the teachers, it's the doctrine being taught by the teachers! But I 100% agree with this part:
"Shouldn't PARENTS decide which school their kids go to, and where their tax dollars are going?!"
Actually I agree with almost everything he said.