Consequences, Consequences

The following is a copy of a document I got from a friend and am using with the girls. It's been used once so far but I love it! Right now my laundry is being done.  I love it because it puts the responsibility on how long consequences last right on the child.  And it gets my house cleaned in the process.  I also love it because I hand it to the child and walk away. No arguing and pleading. Brilliant!

You are Grounded!

You are grounded for: __________________________________

Grounding means:

·                    no doing special things with friends or at school (you may still go to dance, piano, church)

·                    No phone, nabi, ipod, or TV

·                    Other:_______________________________________

You must earn _____ points to get ungrounded. If you earn all the points in 1 day – you are only grounded for 1 day. If you take 2 weeks, you are grounded two weeks. It is up to you.  Write your initials by the things you do and turn this sheet into me when you are finished.

·        Write a nice letter to a family member or friend you haven’t seen lately. Or you may write it to Salman or Brittany. You must write neatly, use correct capitalization and punctuation, and at least 6 good sentences.- 50 points

·        Do 1 load of laundry (wash, dry, fold, and put into buckets and basket)- 100 points – you must do all 4 steps or you get 0 points.

·        Empty the dishwasher and put things away  - 20 points

·        Load dirty dishes into dishwasher (must rinse food off first and load neatly)- 20 points

·        Clear and wipe off kitchen table.- 10 points

·        Clear and wipe off kitchen countertops.- 10 points

·        Take out one bag of garbage/recycling and replace bag.- 20 points

·        Gather garbage from around the house and take out- 20 points

·        Straighten and wipe off bathroom sinks (both bathrooms)- 20 points

·        Clean toilets- 30 points per toilet

·        Clean, dust, and vacuum (including vacuuming around corners) living room.- 50 points

·        Sweep and mop kitchen floor.- 20 points

·        Clean mirrors in both bathrooms and hall- 20 points

·        Sweep/ Clean off the deck- 30 points

·        Clean out and vacuum the car-60 points

An Open Invitation to All My Friends - Come to Prison with Me!

Dear Friends,

Many of you know I am very involved with Kairos Prison Ministry.  (See post just below this one). Kairos is an incredible ministry whose mission is to “share Christ’s love with the incarcerated, their families, and those who work with them”.   I have been asked and have agreed to serve as the Kairos Weekend Leader for Kairos #52 at Tutwiler Prison for Women in Wetumpka.  I will be leading a team of 38 women into the prison to conduct this weekend for 36 selected inmates Sept. 11-14.  We are right in the middle of team training.  It’s a big commitment for our team – requiring over 34 hours of team training, Department of Corrections Training, and 3.5 days at Tutwiler sharing Christ’s love.  But we witness lives changed every time!   

I’d love to have your support. There are many ways you can help.  Later on, we will need help with some specific supplies or food. But for now, we have two primary needs.

·         Prayers.  Please pray for us, for the inmates who will participate in this experience, for the warden and officers, and for the chaplain. Pray that God’s love will soften hearts and change lives.  We make a visual representation of all the prayers being given by making a paper chain. Each link has the name of someone who has agreed to pray for the weekend. If you are willing to commit to pray for us and would like to be included on the prayer chain, please send me your name and I will add a link for you.  It’s a powerful symbol to the ladies when we literally wrap the entire chapel in the prayers of God’s people.

 

·         Financial Support.  This weekend costs a lot. It costs approximately $150 dollars a person, both for team members and for the participants (inmates). That comes to over $11,000 for the weekend (38 team members, 36 participants).  If anyone would like to sponsor an inmate (or sponsor a team member!), we would love your help. You can also donate any amount towards a sponsorship.  Full disclosure – you do not “get” anything for choosing to sponsor someone for this incredible experience. We can’t tell you their names or tell you how they specifically experienced the weekend. We promise confidentiality to everyone participating.  But you do get the joy of knowing you are making a difference in the kingdom of God.  And you will also receive a letter acknowledging your donation after January 1^st for tax purposes.  Kairos is a registered non-profit.

 Another way to support this ministry financially is by purchasing 1 or more “meal tickets”.  If you are unable to sponsor a participant, you can sponsor a meal for $5 (or more).  The way that works is our participants will receive a small meal ticket on their placemat at meal time indicating that meal was paid for for them by (your name) from (city).  It’s a great way to show them the larger Christian community is supporting them as well. If you would like to sponsor one (or more) inmates, purchase meal tickets, or donate any amount towards our goal, please make checks made out to “Kairos of Alabama” and give them to me or private message me for my address.

If there are other ways you would like to help, please contact me. We have all kinds of opportunities.  Some possible ways to help include:

·         Providing a meal for approximately 40 team members at our last team meeting Sept. 6

·         Connecting me with a business that would be willing to donate groceries (particularly large quantities of meat needed for the meals we prepare for the Kairos weekend).

·         Walmart or Sam’s gift cards to use to purchase supplies

·         Sets of 36-38 placemats created by children (Contact me for guidelines)

·         Paper expressions of God’s love in sets of 36-38 (such as bookmarks, poems, etc.  Contact me for guidelines)

·         Set up a visit for me or for some of our other Kairos volunteers to come speak in your church, Sunday school class, or other group.  We have volunteers all over the state and while I can’t promise to make it happen, I’ll do what I can to either come or connect you with someone else who can come share what God is doing inside Tutwiler and other Alabama prisons through Kairos Prison Ministry.

 

Matthew 25:36 states “I was in prison and you visited me.”

 

Please join us in going and visiting and loving with your prayers and your gifts.  Thank you!

 

DeEtte

Biggest Blessing of the Day - When a Man Stranded at Bus Station with a Life Sentence Crashes My Meeting!

My friend Laura Headley has inspired me to blog again. I love writing, but just get so busy with life. But she wrote something inspiring and then we had a chance to talk about it and I realized I've missed putting thoughts down on paper.

So today I want to write about something that happened on our Kairos team meeting today. Those who have read for a  while know I am very involved in Kairos prison ministry.  See  http://deette530.blogspot.com/2010/10/prison-post-that-is-not-about-my.html for some of my earlier thoughts about this ministry.

Well, we are gearing up for our Fall 2014 weekend Sept. 11-14 and I'm serving as the leader of this weekend.  I'm sure I'll post again later about ways you can help.  But today was our 2nd team meeting.  I had just had team members pair up with their prayer partners and they were spread out across the room sharing and praying together.  And I noticed a man on the side of the room.  He caught my eye and looked like he had something to say.  So I walked over there.  This is his story.

His name was "Bill" (I changed his name since this is a public blog).   He used to be at a maximum security men's prison in our state, where he had a life sentence.  He was nearing parole and had been moved to a transitional program in another area of our state.  It's kind of like work-release, but not exactly.  The transitional program is a more minimal security facility.  And long story - he was out on a weekend pass for some family reasons.  And he ended up stuck at the  bus station downtown with no money. He was trying to get back to the transitional program by tomorrow. He stayed at the bus station for over 24 hours when he decided to approach the church we were meeting in.  When he first came and saw that there were a bunch of women meeting inside, he left. A couple of our team members saw him leave. But he says he felt like God was telling him "Go back. Those are your sisters".  His answer? "My sisters! God, that's a bunch of women and most of them are white!" (He was black). But he came back, scared.  And he stood in the back of the room while I was speaking and heard the word "Kairos".  See, Bill had experienced a Kairos weekend when he was at the men's prison. He said it changed his life.  He told me he was muslim before that weekend.  (and fyi..our "goal" is not to convert anyone. Simply to love them like Jesus loves. Any changing of hearts is done by Him). But Bill's heart was changed.

I introduced Bill to the rest of the team and he shared with the team some very encouraging remarks about his life, what God had done for him, and he encouraged our team members in carrying out this ministry.  He told them to keep believing that God can change lives.  We invited him to stay for lunch and we collected a donation to buy him a bus ticket.  After lunch, a couple of our team members walked him to the bus station and got him the ticket.  He didn't want to leave!  I'm not sure who was more blessed - Bill or our team.  We so often get to plant some seeds.  But we don't always get to see the fruit of those seeds. Today, we were incredibly blessed to see the fruit of those seeds.

(And if my mom happens to read this - do not worry! It was a room full of people.  And we did have a few men present with us as well. We were all safe, I promise!)

How to Turn a 5 Minute Dr. Appointment Into a Mini-Vacation



 

Step 1: Have children pack a "small bag" with some things to do on drive to Atlanta. Tell them it will be a LONG day with a 3.5 hour drive there and a 3.5 hour drive back all in one day.  Then,  drive 3.5 hours to Atlanta to scheduled doctor appointment.  Once there, get a quick x-ray and spend less than 5 minutes with actual doctor. But get a good report. :)  Then, head "towards home".

 

 

Step 2: Stop at Golden Corral just outside of Atlanta.  Over a nutritious desert, inform children that you are not actually going home but are going to a hotel. When they say "but we don't have any clothes!", inform them that you packed a suitcase and loaded it into the car after they went to sleep the night before.   Tell them you are going to the exciting town of "Villa Rica". When they ask what there is to do in Villa Rica, tell them "They have an indoor heated pool!"

 

Step 3: After checking into hotel, enjoy an evening swim.

 

Step 4: Bring a craft kit with ceramic horses and paint. Let children paint in hotel room to keep them quiet. Um, I mean, to provide an enriching activity.

 



Step 5: After the continental breakfast the next morning (which in the kids' minds is totally worth the whole trip), head to a little obscure place you found on the internet that you believe will be educational and fun. And very cheap. Go to the Pine Mountain Gold Museum! 



 

 

Step 6: After the video about the gold rush in Villa Rica (actually quite interesting) and a quick walk through the museum, head outside and play in the sand where girls are *certain* they are finding gold.

Step 7: Walk around the property a bit.

 



 Step 8: Ride the train for an almost-personal tour around the property. The only other guests were a couple from Jemison, a town about 10 miles south of ours.

 

 Step 9:  Stick hands in freezing water to pan for gemstones.  For $5 get a whole box full of rocks.  I mean treasures.  And for free, listen to the sweet gentleman in the background give the history of the community of "Dark Corners", a little community that used to be around Villa Rica and how it was a lost town and this man has found it. 

 

Step 9: After a picnic lunch, walk over to the animal exhibit to check them out. And feed a few animals too.

 

 

Step 10: Drive home listening to the radio while children peacefully sleep all the way.

Hannah's Ears

So, this is the update on Hannah. Back in August, I found out her hearing, which has always fluctuated between borderline normal and mild loss, had deteriorated in both ears.  Scroll down to the "Hear Ye, Hear Ye" post for the technical explanation. But bottom line was she was showing a moderate-severe to mild loss in both ears. (Moderate-severe loss in lower frequencies rising to mild loss in upper frequencies).  Her ENT felt like a tube in the left ear might bring hearing in that ear back to normal. (The right ear still had a hole in it). So she had the tube placed mid-september. We went back at the end of October for a re-check of her hearing and it was sadly not any better. A couple frequencies did improve slightly, but a couple were slightly worse too.  Her ENT thinks all her previous ear infections / fluid issues have eroded parts of her middle ear bones. The only way to know for sure is exploratory surgery, but if that's the case, he wouldn't recomend surgical reconstruction at this time due to her continued eustachian tube dysfunction.  He felt like her best option would be hearing aids.

We followed up with Children's Rehab Services because we were already plugged into them for cleft-related things. They have a hearing clinic as well and I was able to get a quick appointment there.  After double checking her hearing one last time to make sure there were no changes, the audiologist went ahead and made molds of her ears and had Hannah pick out her hearing aid colors.  She chose purple for the actual aids and pink and purple swirl for the molds.  About 3 weeks later, they were in.  So, we went back to pick them up, check fitting, and another hearing test with the hearing aids. It was so cool to see her audiograms with the aids and compare them to without.  Her hearing levels tested completely normal in all frequencies with the aids.  And the technology is amazing. I was worried that some sound might be too loud amplified. Despite having a hearing loss, Hannah is sensitive to loud sounds. But the program in the aids themselves adjusts to the loudness. Something technical about compression and such. :) But basically, they are programed to only go to a certain loudness level in order to not damage more hearing. And they adjust automatically. If someone were to come up to Hannah and slam a door right behind her, the aids would automatically compensate and decrease output.  Hannah was so excited to get her hearing aids and loved them. And 2 weeks later, she still loves them. She puts them on every morning and takes them off every night. She has done great with caring for them and cleaning them as well.  And she changed the batteries on them tonight. She says she can tell a difference with them in. I can tell a difference.  I'm rephrasing a lot less often and she just seems a little more relaxed. So I'm glad we got them.  She'll go back in 2 months to have them rechecked and then will probably only go back every 6 months for a check and new molds unless concerns arise.  The aids themselves should last years but she'll need frequent molds due to growth.

I asked her if she thought they helped her at school. She said yes, she can tell a difference. She does still have a little trouble in noisy situations. But that's because while the aids will amplify her teacher's voice, they also amplify all the background noise.  But we are working on solutions to that. Her only complaint is that sometimes lunch and PE are too loud. I can see that - I've eaten enough lunches in school cafeterias to know how loud it can get.  Right now she doesn't have any control over the volume of her hearing aids, but that is possible with these aids. It just takes the audiologist "activating" the volume control button.  So, that's a possibility so she can turn down the volume in those noisy situations.   I just hope she doesn't turn me down when I'm telling her something she doesn't like! :)

NEXT POST: All About Christmas Fun! (Coming soon)

Sadie's Surgery - Goodbye Fixator!

Sadie's Surgery (#2 for this series, #6 total)

The day after Thanksgiving Sadie and I headed to Atlanta bright and early. REALLY early. We left my parents' house at 3:45 a.m.! While the fixator was on, Sadie had several infections and rounds of antibiotics. She had been off antibiotics for about a week. She had been fine - the pin sites looked great, etc. And the morning of surgery, she starts complaining in the car that her arm hurts. Sure enough, when we got there and took the gauze off, it looked like it might be getting infected again and had been draining.  Her surgeon looked at it before surgery. And then afterwards said it did look like it was in early stages of infection. He also said her pins were very loose in the bone.  Not terribly surprising as long as they had been stretching her wrist out for such a long time.. But it looks like the fixator came off just in time before causing problems.  She did have to take a round of antibiotics after the surgery though.  Sadie's surgery overall went great, but she was pretty sick at her stomach afterwards.  We were prepared for it this time though.  First, I had a letter from her nephrologist stating they should not limit her fluids (like they did last time). That helped because I didn't have to worry about her being dehydrated. Plus it helped her just not feel so bad. And second, her surgeon had made plans to tentatively keep her overnight. Basically, he admitted her immediately after surgery, but gave us the option of going home late afternoon if she was doing fine.  But even through the afternoon, she wasn't drinking and couldn't keep it down if she did. So we stayed. The fluids and pain medicine being given through IV helped and she also got 3 doses of iv antibiotics while we were there so I'm glad we stayed. By the next morning, she was back to herself: eating pancakes, joking with the nurses, wanting out of bed, and ready to go home. We were discharged late that morning and she did great from then on.  She was happy about two things: she got a purple and pink sparkly cast and her surgeon let her keep the fixator (minus the pins thankfully).  Her stuffed dog pouffy had a little surgery done once we got home.

Sadie kept the purple and pink cast for only 10 days. Then it was back to Atlanta for post-op xrays, cleaning of her surgery site, and a new cast. X-rays looked great! Her new cast is Christmas red and green and to Sadie's delight is a short-arm cast. (Her purple and pink one was long-arm so she's now thankful to be able to move her elbow.)  During the few minutes between casts, we got a good look at her arm.  It's pretty brusied and "yucky" looking still, but it's very straight. Her surgeon was really happy with it. She'll keep this cast until mid-January. Then she'll move to a splint that can come on and off.  She'll keep it on most of the time for a while, but will be able to take it off for baths. Eventually she'll move to a night-splint, which is what she was doing before we started all this.  She'll continue to wear a night-splint until she's done growing. She has a pin in her wrist still that will stay for about 6 months. The procedure to remove it, while technically "surgery" requiring anesthesia, is very quick and easy.  Looks like we'll do that early summer.  When Sadie heard that, she at first wasn't happy with that idea, but her dr. assured her that 1 week later she could go back to swimming and whatever other summer fun she wanted to do.

Sadie relaxing before surgery

Sadie's arm pre-op

Several hours after surgery. Trying to talk to Hannah, but was feeling too yucky.

Morning after - feeling much better and out of bed

Hey nice nurses and doctors - I'm good now so help me break free of this place!

See? I needed to get home so I could help Barbie perform surgery on my dog.  Now that he has a fixator - no running or being active!

A couple weeks later - my new Christmas cast!

I can not say enough nice things about everyone involved in her care.  Her surgeon is first of all a top-notch surgeon. And he's a good doctor and communicator.  He answered quite a few e-mails from me during the 4 months she had her fixator.  He has encouraged me and encouraged Sadie, even addressing part of an e-mail to her directly telling her how proud he was of her for dealing so well with the fixator. Then, after surgery she got a card in the mail from him telling her what a great job she did.  And he has worked so well with us being out of town, helping set up x-rays locally that we could e-mail him so we didn't have to take quite as many trips.  And when I asked if he could do surgery the day after Thanksgiving because we were off of school and work already, he agreed. I didn't learn until later that he really did that as a favor to us. He wasn't doing any other surgeries that day. Sadie was his only patient. He came in and did her surgery, set things up for her to be admitted, talked to me, and then left to go sell Christmas trees with his son's baseball team.  His assistant is also super sweet and personable and very responsive to any questions I have. Even the x-ray people there and the "cast guy" (I'm sure he has a more official title!) are great. They are never in a rush and take the time to do things right and take the time to talk and explain everything to us.  After her last surgery, his resident even left me his cell phone number so we could reach him immediately instead of going through the on-call service the night after surgery. Okay, so *everything* isn't perfect. The OT's in the office next door who make her splints are a little hurried and grumpy sometimes. They really get grumpy when we show up for a splint without an appointment. But it can't be helped - we need a new splint when the dr. says we need a new one and I do let them know when I suspect we will need one. But I don't always know.  And the OT's billing practices leave a bit to be desired. But we keep going to them because they do a good job and do it right.  And so far, I've been able to work out any billing conflicts with them even if it takes a while. So I can live with them being a little grumpy from time to time. But overall, I'm so thankful to have this group of medical folks on Sadie's team and it is so worth the back and forth driving to Atlanta. (AND, as a bonus, construction on I-20 has suddenly gotten so much better!)  Plus, Sadie likes that we stop for lunch or supper (depending on appt time) on the way back usually. This time: Golden Corral where I let her have the very rare treat of cotton candy!. And yes, she totally travelled to her appointment in her pajamas, robe, and santa hat.

Sadie's Birthday, Halloween, Fixator Update

Sadie celebrated her 8th birthday in October with a science party. She had a blast and I think her friends did too.

For Halloween, I took a surgeon and a hot dog out trick or treating.  We went with our good friends and had a blast hanging out with them!

Sometime early-mid November, we reached day 100 of the external fixator. So, we celebrated it, complete with muffins in the morning and a trip to Chuck E. Cheese.  We also started the last 20 days countdown with an advent lego calendar. Only, we weren't counting down to Christmas yet, but rather to surgery day. Sadie has been a trooper and handled the fixator so very well.  It did start to get a little old at the end. So we started spicing things up by decorating her fixator cover a little more often.

This girl amazes me with her resilience!  Thanksgiving and surgery pictures coming soon. :)

A Little of Everything

So, here's the short synopsis of our last few weeks: school, birthday, homework, prison, ears, arms, hands, kidneys, jaws, teeth, dance, brownies, and more.

Longer version...
Hannah
Hannah enjoyed her 10th birthday celebration. Can't believe this girl is 10!!! She had some friends from her girl scout troop come spend the night and they stayed up all night and had a blast.

Hannah also had the tube put in her left ear mid-September. She did great with that. The ear drops afterwards were not so fun, but she got through them and has been fine since. I'm not convinced it has helped her hearing a lot yet. Maybe? So hard to tell sometimes. We'll go back to have it checked in a few weeks.

Sadie
Well let's see. The fun stuff first. Sadie is LOVING 2nd grade. She loves her teachers, her school, and her friends.  She's been out of anything active since her surgery August 2nd (including dance, PE, recess). So that's been her only "bummer", but she's handled it well. She did become a brownie Girl Scout, something she's been wanting to do.  Her leaders and troop all seem super sweet.  So far, they've had their bridging ceremony and 1 meeting.  I just brought her home from the meeting and she told me all about it and said "I love love love my troop!".  I think it will be a really good experience for her.

She continues to do amazingly well with her fixator.  With the exception of 1 bad day last week, she's rarely mentioned it hurting or causing any pain. She just goes on with her happy self.  We're cleaning the pin sites twice daily and turning it once daily. But we haven't had to go to Atlanta quite as much this past few weeks. We've started getting local xrays and e-mailing them to her surgeon. He's really good about responding and telling me what adjustments to make. The latest is that I have about 3 more days of turning to do and then we should be done. Then I'll schedule her next surgery to remove the fixator and centralize her wrist.

Meanwhile, Sadie now has a new nepherologist.  The short version of the story is the previous dr. was good. I believe the information he gave me was accurate and that he was caring for Sadie well.  But for whatever reason, I wasn't thrilled with communication, especially if I had a question or needed something outside of our yearly visits.  And I just sensed a nudging to look elsewhere.  So when I needed a letter from him for upcoming surgery and it was proving challenging to get, I looked elsewhere.  Sadie had her first visit with the new neph last week and it went great! I left with a better understanding of Sadie's kidneys (which are working great by the way), the name of her diagnosis which will be helpful for communicating with her other doctors (and which wasn't new, but I just never knew exactly what it was called), and a really good feeling. I loved the new doctor and his staff.  And less than 24 hours after our visit, I had the letter I needed for Sadie's upcoming surgery in my hands.  Sadie left with a lollipop from the receptionist and a chocolate chip cookie from another patient's family.  So she came out feeling good about it too. And yes, this picture below is how she made her grand entrance into the new office. :)

 And the BIG news for Sadie is her 8th birthday is coming next weekend.  She has a really fun party planned with a few friends. She's having a "Super Science Party".  Messy experiments, lab coats, and a chocolate fountain are in the plans.  Check back soon for pictures / update. :)

Prison
I had the wonderful opportunity last month to serve in a women's prison for Kairos. Those who know me know I've been involved in Kairos ministry for quite some time.  It's an incredible ministry and God amazes me every single time.  There are certain moments that get to me each time..the presentation of our paper prayer chain, where each link represents someone praying for the women, a very powerful Saturday evening "Forgiveness Service", and more. But this time the moment that touched my heart the most was a very simple, easy-to-miss one.  We had been at the prison for 2.5 days (starting Thursday afternoon). And the team was singing "When the Saints Go Marching In" on Sunday morning, our last day.  While we were singing, the 36 participants were coming into the prison chapel to join us for the day. They were singing, marching, dancing, and laughing.  It was a very upbeat moment. And everyone of them walked, danced, or marched by me as we sang to them and the look on their faces was priceless. They were changed ladies, touched by the grace of God. They were most definitely not the same people that had walked into that same chapel on Thursday.  And we were also not the same people that had walked in there as well. It was just a beautiful moment of seeing God's grace in action.  If you read this and smiled (or even if you didn't), will you please take a moment to stop and pray for them?  For we know that they were changed, but their environment was not.  And they have the challenge of trying to live this new life out in the midst of a difficult, dark, and bitter environment surrounding them. Please pray that they will lean on Christ and seek His face always.  I can't wait to go back!!!