Concerns of the week

Last year, our youngest son was homeschooled all year and our oldest son went to school for 3 classes & did the other 4 classes at home. This year, our oldest is at the high school for 6 classes & he does 2 at home. Our youngest went back to public school full-time. He's very VERY social. He met with other kids a minimum of 3 times a week last year during homeschool-1 day for a whole day of school, 1 day for 1/2 day activity, and then going to church activities one night a week but he felt like that wasn't even close to enough and I thought it took a lot of time and effort managing that much. We gave him a choice to homeschool or try public again and he wanted to try public again and he is actually really loving it. He started in a school that is brand new this year. They gave each student a Chromebook to keep with them for 7th-9th grade. It comes home every day, goes back to school every day. My concern was privacy but there were some great tutorials about how to disable a lot of trackers and I felt a lot more comfortable. If I sound crazy-ha ha-you have no idea! :)

This week I had a chance to substitute at my youngest son's school two days in a row and it was my first time being there. Some interesting things are going on there that aren't happening in other schools. The biggest problem is that a large percentage of students cannot put their Chromebooks away. I will make a very specific announcement about not wanting to see them and 10 minutes later 5 Chromebooks will be out. I will make another announcement and if I'm lucky 1 student will put it away. This doesn't happen in other schools because other schools have a classroom set of Chromebooks and students don't feel personal ownership of them. It would be weird for them to go grab a Chromebook if the teacher doesn't ask them to but at this school, students only have to reach into their backpack to access a Chromebook they feel ownership of. In addition, more students are playing games on the Chromebook instead of doing the assignment. Because they can use it at home, they install games and they know what games are available at all times so they don't feel as many restrictions. Some of the 7th grade classes I taught had to take an assessment, which came after an assignment they needed their Chromebooks for, and it literally took about 10 minutes for all of the Chromebooks to be put away. The kids have an unhealthy attachment to these things. In most schools, there is a widespread problem with phones and I did have some problems with kids using their phones during class but that is a smaller problem than their addiction to the Chromebooks. This was very eye-opening to me about what's going on at that school.

In all of the middle & high schools I've been in this year, many students have handwriting that is nearly unreadable. They use keyboards so much more than they use physical writing that they are not mastering how to write something another person can read and nobody is holding them accountable. I see students that need to be entertained. If you are not teaching them something they enjoy or giving them an assignment they enjoy, they refuse to participate and they pull out their phones or use their Chromebooks in alternative ways, using them to be entertained instead of learning anything. They demand to be entertained or they will disengage completely and there's no middle ground. Turning people into functional human beings is not just fun and games. There is hard work involved and it concerns me how few are willing to do the work. I think the thing that concerns me more is that parents as a whole are clueless about all of this. I hear about employees who contact parents concerning their student's excessive use of phones during school and a common response is "teenagers and their phones. That's just something they do at this age." Another response that I hear too much is "Well, what can I really do?" Parents know there's a problem but they give up without even trying to solve the problem. Without parent support, teenagers have no accountability because their poor choices are now widely acceptable, at least to other teenagers and to many adults. There's a good reason why teenagers don't run the world or at least why they're not supposed to. I'm DEEPLY concerned about how few of students have mastered multiplication, even by middle school. There's a widespread belief that there's no point. Most people have constant access to calculators. I wish I could spread understanding about how teaching your brain to do math makes your brain capable of so many non-math-related things that make it necessary for being a functional human. I'm not even talking about trigonometry or calculus, just basic multiplication. It's a life skill. If you emerge from school unable to perform basic equations, how do you figure out in black and white when you're being overcharged for something or how to find the best deal on anything you buy in sizes or quantities? How do you even think about computing life problems to come up with solutions?

I wish I had some hopeful thing to end my concerns on. I guess I'm glad I saw the inner workings of my son's school so I can have very targeted conversations with him about my concerns and so I know what problems to address that he could possibly fall prey to embracing. There are some fantastic students out there and my heart is always softened by kind and thoughtful acts I do see amidst the trouble so there is still plenty of wonderful things going on at school as well.

Vaccinations

Until 4 1/2 years ago, I'd never met anybody who had a child they believed was injured by vaccines. To this day, I don't personally know anybody who has not vaccinated their children. When doctors told me they were giving my children vaccinations, I never gave pause. I never questioned. I never had any reason to believe there would be a problem so my children were given all of their vaccinations on schedule up to the age of 12. When my daughter was 12, I'd heard of Gardasil, seen ads for it. I'd lightly looked up a few things about it on my own but didn't dive in too deep.

We went to get her shots to prepare for junior high. They told me she was getting a couple shots & an HPV vaccine. I agreed but didn't remember hearing about an HPV vaccine. While they prepared shots, I read a little about HPV and realized it was the same thing as Gardasil. I knew I didn't feel good about the shot. I couldn't tell you specifically why. I just knew that I didn't want her getting it. The doctor came back in and I said my daughter could have all the other shots but NOT the one for HPV. The doctor looked at me like I was a crazy person, told me all the benefits she'd get from the HPV vaccine, and put a lot of pressure on me to agree to the shot. I wouldn't. The doctor asked me to leave the room so she could have a private conversation with my daughter. I'm a tougher person now and wouldn't leave but back then, I'm sad to admit I did leave the room. I found out afterward that the doctor asked my daughter if she wanted the shot and tried to tell her how good it would be to have. She told her she would be able to give her the shot if she wanted it, even if I had said no. Luckily, she said no to getting it. That had been our doctor for about 8 or 9 years but we never went back to her. How can you trust a doctor that would try to undermine a parent with their own 12 year-old child?

When my son turned 12, we went to a new doctor for his junior high shots. The doctor asked about getting all the same shots but this time, I already knew what I was avoiding so I said yes to everything but the HPV. The doctor said, "Do you want more information about the HPV vaccination? I plan to give it to my own kids and I think it's a good thing." I told him I appreciate it but I'd done my own research and was choosing to avoid it. He tapped my son on the shoulder and said, "We gotta do what Mom says, ok?" and that was it. That's how I knew he was a good doctor for our family. He pushed a little but when I pushed back, he let me be in charge of my own family, even when he disagreed with my decision. Our youngest son went to the same doctor before starting 7th grade. We opted out of the HPV. There were no problems. I have related what I thought our worst problem with vaccines has been. My kids have all been vaccinated on schedule, with the exception of avoiding the HPV vaccine, which isn't a mandatory vaccination anyway.

It's important to note that my experience is very similar to most of the people in this country. I vaccinated all of my children on schedule. I didn't think about it. I didn't wonder if I was doing the right thing. I honestly never considered an alternative. If somebody would have suggested not vaccinating, I would have probably thought they were a little crazy, possibly super granola, not relatable and I would not have listened. I may have even been angry they would suggest such a thing. Experience and information changes everything. 4 1/2 years ago, I met somebody who has 4 children. 3 of them are autistic. The only child that isn't had his vaccinations delayed. It took a while for her to open up but about 3 years ago, she told me play-by-play what happened to her oldest child. She got the MMR vaccine around the 1 1/2 year old time-frame. She had been a verbal and well-tempered child, hitting all the regular milestones. Overnight, her daughter became inconsolable, started banging her head into the wall, screamed a lot and couldn't focus the way she had before. She would no longer sleep at night. She would just wake up and bang her head into the wall. She was eventually diagnosed with autism. My friend thought nothing of it but had a similar experience with her next child. Her child was fine, hitting milestones and then it seemed like he randomly changed a lot. When he was diagnosed with autism, she didn't want to see her children limited in life so she hired professionals to work with her children 8 hours a day in her home and it cost her $40,000 that year to get her 2 children to a high-functioning level. I don't know how she pulled it off financially. I don't think that's a possibility for many people. She waited several years to have another child but still hadn't pinned down what the problem was so she did everything the same way. When she noticed him changing after his toddler MMR shot, she finally, and regretfully had that lightbulb moment that maybe the shots were linked to the autism. Let me be clear. Her family members carry the MTHFR gene, which leaves them more sensitive to many things in their environment than the average person. My kids had all the same shots and never became autistic. My kids also don't carry the MTHFR gene. On her last child, she still wasn't anti-vaccine. She was just wondering if a delay would help so she didn't have her child vaccinated on schedule and he never ended up with autism. My friend opening up to me about her experience (and she did so very reluctantly because people did not usually receive her story well), was the first time I ever wondered anything about vaccines. She invited my husband and I to a documentary with her husband and her and we decided to go, just to see what it was like.

We saw Vaxxed in 2016. I have to be honest. I watched it as a skeptic. I didn't believe everything in the movie. I didn't believe many things I saw in the movie. I found it interesting but I could see that it was being presented from an angle that really believed one way so I took in the information but wasn't easily swayed. One really helpful thing though is that at that showing, Del Bigtree, the Vaxxed producer, and others involved in the movie stayed for a Q&A after the showing. I think I learned more from the Q&A than I had from the movie but I don't recall many specifics. I was a skeptic but for the first time, I went home asking myself, "Could there be a problem with vaccines?" I spent the next year doing a good deal of research and personal reflection about vaccines. I kept saying, "I'm not anti-vaccines but shouldn't we ask questions?" I talked about it with 7 or 8 different people, most of them not very happy about the idea of even asking any questions. I'd like to know what's wrong with asking some questions? If things are as great as they seem, that will be discovered but if there's a problem, that can also be discovered. Either way, isn't it helpful to ask some questions? My big question, as I thought about vaccines was, "Why do newborns get a Hepatitis vaccine? They're unlikely to be promiscuous or involved with drug-abuse. Why do they have to have that shot before even leaving the hospital?" Once you are able to reasonably question one thing, your mind begins to open up to other possibilities. "Why are so many shots given to babies? Why do we inject newborns with aluminum, which their body treats like a toxin?" As I was doing my research, I spent a good deal of time reading from the CDCs own web site. What I would consider some of the most damaging information I got about vaccines, I got at the CDC web site. When people say anti-vaxxers "Just saw one misinformed meme on Facebook and jumped onboard" or they get all their facts from uncredible sources, I get insulted. That same organization that many quote as ruling vaccines are safe, the CDC, is exactly where I learned just how un-safe vaccines are. I can't use any more of a credible source than the very source everybody else is believing. I learned that some vaccines were grown on aborted fetuses but the CDC says that shouldn't matter for two reasons: 1)That was the first round in the 1960s so it's not like today's vaccine was directly grown on an aborted fetus and 2)The Pope said it's still okay to get the vaccines. If either of these two arguments lay all of your fears to rest, that seems concerning since neither piece of information seems fully acceptable.

I also learned from the CDC web site that vaccines can contain cancer and injecting them into your child can possibly give your child cancer. The CDC claims it would be too costly and take too long to test everything to make sure there is no cancer to start with but they say the benefits outweigh the "unlikely" negative possibilities. Let this fact digest for a bit. What if you gave your child cancer by vaccinating them? This week I saw the 2nd Vaxxed movie, The People's Truth.

This is the show that tells the stories of people with children who have been vaccine-injured. This isn't a bunch of random facts and ideas. This is parents saying, "My child was at this certain point but this is what happened the same day as they were vaccinated." Parents have nothing to gain by saying this. They get rejected by their communities, rejected sometimes by their doctors. Speaking their truth only brings them heartache. Several girls (and 1 boy) who received the HPV vaccines lost their ability to walk. Two girls in the movie that got the HPV vaccine (which is said to prevent cervical cancer) got cervical cancer within months of getting the vaccine. Some girls died from the HPV vaccine and Colton Berrett lost his life after feeling like a burden from HPV vaccine complications.

The movie includes interviews with doctors, all of them claiming that they don't receive much training in vaccinations. The movie then goes on to show many children who have never been vaccinated. They are smart. They are beautiful. They are high-functioning. The parents say they are healthy as can be, rarely need to see a doctor, heal quickly when getting colds. Some parents vaccinated older children before avoiding vaccines with more children and say the healthier kids are the unvaccinated kids. I have never considered my children to be vaccine-injured. I thought back to their early childhoods. Our first two kids got really sick early on. Our daughter got a cold at about 6 or 8 weeks old and it lasted around 10 days and was terrifying. Our second child got RSV at 4 weeks old and started turning blue. He was admitted to the hospital and put in ICU for about a week. What if his natural immunity wasn't so faulty but being injected with aluminum as a newborn made his immune system struggle just to survive so that he actually had a weaker immune system, leaving him open to get and suffer anything he came in contact with? How would he have done if he hadn't been immunized? When he got a little older, he would get life-threatening bouts of croup, which he was hospitalized for twice and his lungs would retract into his body when he would breathe. Our youngest son was quarantined by us for months after his birth because of our experience of having an infant with RSV. He did, however, get some "unexplainable" illness at the age of 3, which he was hospitalized for. I feel like I did the best I could, or at least the best I knew how to do for my kids. There's no way to know if the outcome would be better or worse had I made different choices. It could go either way. There are so many out there crying for parents to be forced to immunize, crying for protecting all children in the way they feel is best. Is it the best? The more time you spend online, the more arguments you could find for either side of the debate. Both sides claim to have studies that prove their point. Both sides have claims that the other sides arguments don't make sense because of X, Y, or Z.

I write this hoping for two things in the world to change. We have to protect a parent's right to choose. I understand that there is scary information out there about what could supposedly happen to "other" children if unvaccinated children are allowed to walk around unregulated but as soon as we start letting the government decide what's best for families, we lose our true ability to parent and we give up natural rights. The other thing is that I truly am not anti-vax but I am pro Let's Ask Questions. What would be different if people were no longer afraid just to ask the questions? Why do newborns have to get a Hepatitis B vaccine before leaving the hospital? Why don't doctors receive more training about vaccinations? Why do cancer-free young women who get vaccinated against cervical cancer end up with cervical cancer just months after the vaccination? Why does the CDC refuse to do a study that compares vaccinated children to unvaccinated children over several years of time? Why do many doctors who have studied patients that have been vaccinated and patients that have not for years come to the conclusion that unvaccinated patients are far healthier? Why would anybody truly believe that it's okay to take away the rights of a parent trying to oversee their child's well-being and give those rights to the government or to society in general? It wasn't long ago that I would never have asked these questions. I may have been annoyed to even hear them. I have been exposed to undeniable information that no longer makes it possible for me to just go along for the ride. I have to ask questions and I have to fight for a parent's right to choose for their own family.

Homeopathic Update

We went to a homeopath starting in May and with visits going through July and treatments going through August. Here is how things went by person: ***For my youngest son who has severe allergies & has been on Zyrtec for years, we tried the suggested treatments and there is no permanent change in his allergies. Some say we should have tweaked his treatment until we got something that would work better. Honestly, we couldn't afford to but I'll talk more about that later. We tried a full round of treatment. There didn't seem to be a long-term change in his symptoms. I'm really committed to getting him off Zyrtec though so for the last month, he has only taken Boiron histaminum hydrochloricum, homeopathic pellets, and they have done great! It costs about $11 for 1 1/2 month supply & they have a stronger dose for the summer (when his allergies get worse) that we will probably get. We tried the homeopathy with a professional for him. I didn't love the results. I felt like I can manage this on my own and we have a course that I think will be helpful.

***For my other son, he couldn't stop throwing up. The homeopath said it was likely to be a parasite problem at first. We used a few things, including wormwood and it seemed to help a little but he was still really sick and he was still throwing up. The homeopath did muscle testing and then had him do a few physical things to hone in on specifics and said he had a gallbladder issue and we did a round of using Lidan primarily and a few other things. My son stopped throwing up!!! He still says he doesn't feel good but he doesn't take the supplements anymore and he hasn't thrown up for a good while now and I think that's a miracle!!! Because I still worry about him feeling sick, we followed up with traditional doctors. He's had an x-ray of his gallbladder and a nuclear med hydascan to see his gallbladder in action and nothing was determined to be noticeably wrong. Based on our experiences & timing, I believe he did have a problem with his gallbladder, the homeopathy fixed the gallbladder problem, and by the time we followed up with traditional medicine, there was no longer a problem to diagnose. Him not feeling great could be anything but without throwing up all the time, at least he can lead a semi-normal life. I feel like going to the homeopath was well worth everything just to see my kid not have to throw up all the time anymore.

***For my issues, I was diagnosed with a gallbladder problem and put on lidan. It helped me digest food for the first time in a long time! That was lovely but as soon as I quit taking it, I still felt yucky all the time, couldn't digest food well. I don't take it now. It's too expensive to take long-term ($17 for a 9-day supply). The homeopath said my physical issues don't need as much attention as my emotional issues. He originally put me on pulsatilla but as I read more, I told him I thought I was more natrum muriaticum and he asked some questions, said he believes that's right and apologized for starting with something else. It's not a big deal because the treatment for both isn't too expensive. I actually take both because I haven't found anything that says you can't try treating both things at the same time and I think the natrum muriaticum is more important and better describes me but the pulsatilla has a few things that are spot-on. I have changed a lot emotionally since I started. There are a few ways I have stood up for myself more and taken more control of my life. In part, I have been open to other things that have helped me (books about cognitive behavioral therapy and sitting in on several sessions of it as well as being places where people discuss little tips & tricks which I try and find helpful) so that a combination of things are fortifying my emotions and putting me on a healthier path. Does my husband think I've drastically changed? I don't know. I don't know if he notices the changes but I have noticed.

***Final Thoughts-seeing the homeopath was very affordable-all the visits combined were $50-$60. Treatments ended up costing a fortune. We spent hundreds of dollars and it was pretty much most of my personal savings. I price-checked many other places & they had the lowest prices on almost everything so I don't think the store was over-inflating costs. It's just that it's an expensive route to take and insurance doesn't cover any of it. I'm happy for every penny spent. My kid doesn't throw up! My emotions are getting under control! We found a way to manage allergies other than Zyrtec. It wasn't perfect but it helped us in great ways. I would recommend it but I would hope you have some savings to help cover the costs of the treatments, especially if 3 people are going in at the same time.

Not my people

In our previous home, we went to church with some of the best people on the planet. It took a while to get to know people-it wasn't something that clicked right away. Eventually though, we made friends & to me, it was the only place where I truly felt like I was home. We had a group that started getting together to play games. There were people that came consistently but it was also always open to whoever any of us wanted to invite or anybody we thought could use some friends so it was never exclusive or clique-y. Our friends were aware of my faults & loved & accepted me anyway & I felt that. I would say everybody was middle class but we had to be careful with money. It's a neighborhood where many people could take a trip every year if they saved & planned but it didn't always work out either. Trips weren't flashy but just a chance for the family to get away. It's a neighborhood where when parents let their kids drive at 16 but it's usually the family car they drive until they can save up money for their own car. Everybody was genuine & looking out for their community. We moved almost 5 years ago because we felt like it was right & we kept getting pulled back to certain neighborhoods to find our house. It didn't feel good at first but I know it takes time. I cannot deny that we have a few great friends here that I'm so happy to know! However, I feel more & more often that these are not my people. Lifestyles & values are fundamentally different. People take more trips than anybody can keep track of & most of them are flashy. Everybody buys their kid a car right at 16. With the exception of a couple people, I don't feel accepted as I am & it feels like no matter how hard I try, I never will be accepted by most people here. It often feels like you can put a price tag on acceptance & often times, certain values seem to also come with a price tag. I feel frustrated. I'm not certain of the reason or reasons we were guided here but I sure do miss my people!!!

Wipe out

I always stock up on toilet paper & toothbrushes. I'm not sure why I have such a fear of running out of either of those but we almost ran out of toilet paper last week for the first time in 20 years...money be tight & what not but it felt so good to stock back up.

Looping

What's it like to have a 2nd child of mine attempt suicide? I don't believe there are words for it. I've spent hours wondering where to go from here. In the hospital, they try to make you feel like there's only one path and it's to hospitalize your child. I knew it wasn't right with the first child. 3 years later, taking her home was clearly was the right choice. This time I considered the inpatient option and they tried to get me signed up right away. I asked a lot of questions before I could agree and I found out they only let you see or talk to your child for 1 hour a day. That and a thorough discussion with my kid made me decide I didn't want to do it and then everybody at the hospital who seemed so friendly suddenly treats you differently and tries to "talk you into it" aggressively. I understand that it doesn't look like I can keep my child (or children) safe but I know them. They might not be okay but putting them into that environment would intensify, not solve their problems.

My heart aches for my kids. When will I know that they will be okay? One child got to a healthy place, said she was happy and now forgets to take her meds all the time and doesn't feel very good. If her having a glimpse of feeling good wasn't enough to keep her working hard to hold onto it, what can I do to motivate her to stay on her meds, especially when she lives out on her own? With my next child, he has dealt with intense physical issues for a couple of years and nobody can tell him what's wrong or help him feel physically better and I understand that he feels like it's a lot to handle. He's a master of telling us that he's hanging in there and leaving no signs that he's in crisis and then surprising us with thoughts & attempts of suicide. I don't believe he wants to die. I do strongly believe he'd like to witness an end to his pain and I don't know how to end it. I don't know how to be the right parent for the job and I wish I could be more, do more. I only know that my heart and soul and every moment I can give to these kids is what I will contribute in search of something better for them. I hope it's enough.

Hidden in plain sight

I realized this week that sometimes my judgments keep me from seeing what's really in front of me. I'm sure we all do it but it was a really concrete example of it. Several years ago, I tried my hand at stand up comedy for a while and got to know a lot of local comedians. This week my brother invited me to go to a comedy show. While we were waiting for it to start, I casually observed the surroundings. I saw the comedy club owner and he was rushing around getting things ready to go and I saw this really old guy helping get things ready as well. I thought it was nice that there was something for an old guy who loves comedy to do. He was setting up recording equipment and doing various other tasks. I observed him multiple times doing different things to prepare for the show. The show started. We saw a few different people doing some opening work. They then called a comedian I used to know and I was really looking forward to seeing him after many years of not seeing him. Much to my surprise, up came this "really old guy" that had been helping set up the show. He probably is 20 years older than me but that's not as old as I had perceived this man to be and the thing that bothered me is that I hadn't recognized him. I had watched him several times and never observed his face well enough to know it was him. I just thought it was an old guy and went on about my business. It makes me wonder what I miss out on seeing in other ways. For fun, here is a picture of what he looked like when I knew him better and what he looked like the night of the show.

My experience on Pioneer Trek

Now that we've been home from trek for a week, I'm ready to kind of give a run-down of our experience. Pioneer trek is an activity (often attended by church groups) where you bring very basic supplies, get sorted into a "family", load your supplies into a handcart, and pull the handcart to various places for several days along a rocky dirt path, setting up camps each night to rest. This gives you the slightest glimpse of what the pioneers went through to get here and settle our state. We only went for 4 days and 3 nights and we went during the summer, with plenty of clothing and food and water to get through. Pioneers would have gone in all kinds of weather and been at it for months at a time while struggling to be adequately clothed or fed or hydrated. Many died along the way. The hubbie and I were a "ma" and "pa" and we were given 7 "children" for the week, 3 girls and 4 boys.

I should say that I've wanted to go so badly since I was 13 years old. My church group was going that year but you had to be 14 to go so I missed the chance. I love physical challenges (that seem within my ability to accomplish). My little bro & his wife went and had a great experience as a ma & pa and I wanted that, too. We were not originally selected to go and I felt heartbroken but we campaigned and were asked eventually to do it and I felt like all my dreams were coming true.

I did all the preparations that were suggested (other than reading all the books on the list because we were called to the task too late to have enough time for that). I did all the physical activity required to prepare and wrote a personal history and learned songs and engaged in many pioneer activities and research. We left on a Wednesday. The Sunday before, my ears were really plugged up. On Monday they started ringing nonstop. It continued on Tuesday. I did everything I could possibly learn of to try to get them back to normal. Nothing made a difference. On Wednesday morning, my ears were still ringing. I was very frustrated. We met our "kids" and had breakfast together. There were a few hundred people in the room and it was noisy as can be and my ears were very plugged and very ring-y so it was hard for me to enjoy introductions with the kids. We got on a bus and headed out. Somewhere along the way, the ringing stopped and my ears became unplugged. I was incredibly grateful for this one little difference so once we arrived, I could actually hear properly.

The first day was our longest and we walked 9.4 miles. I was excited for it but didn't realize that more of our kids would try to get out of helping than not so much of the weight of getting our cart where we needed fell to Preston & I. I have no problem walking long distances. Walking long distances while pulling a handcart...very different experience. It was exhausting. We had one kid though that really carried the group. I saw him get exhausted and that just made his determination and commitment grow. He was a workhorse! We got to our camp for the night and still had to set up camp. We had a tent for the girls and homemade tarp structure for the boys. We had a very nice, fairly new tent. It had been fine the last time we used it but when we went to set it up, a part was broken. Luckily in modern day, we have duct tape so we were able to tape it up to make it usable. Two of our girls just immediately went to sleep in the tent instead of really interacting. We were supposed to have kind of a spiritual discussion with our kids but they were all so worn out that I don't think any of them were really open to it so that didn't go over that well. Everybody went to bed for the night. My body ached in crazy ways and I couldn't get comfortable so I didn't sleep well at all. I realized that I was raised very differently than these kids. When I grew up and went to Girls Camp and things like that, we were told to pack as little as possible so it was always just a sleeping bag. I had only packed a sleeping bag. Every single kid had packed some kind of padding. Some weren't too big but some were very big and bulky and I could tell that we were raised very differently. We woke up the next day and got going. I was more nervous about the day because I was starting out unrested and very sore. I was also sick about doing a woman's pull later in the day. That would be where the men went up ahead and the women would be responsible for pushing the carts up a challenging hill alone. This was to teach us the strength that was required from women alone when the men died or were away doing other necessary tasks and couldn't be with the women yet so many pioneer women continued anyway. I didn't feel like my 3 daughters and I could get our cart up a challenging hill with just us yet I was the adult so I felt a great responsibility to making it work. Taking down camp and re-packing the wagon proved to be a tricky thing but we got it done. We actually were the first family of 22 to be ready to go. Day 2 was to be 7.4 miles in total and after breakfast, we were on our way.

The walk was grueling. The hills were difficult and the physical toll was undeniable. We got to a point where the women's pull was to be and much to my relief, it was designed for success. The boys split up into different groups and pulled several of the handcarts up to the finish. The girls were grouped up so that each cart had 5-7 girls on it. No cart had to make due with just 4 people, which I had feared. It was challenging and felt long but it was doable. I felt very emotional and humbled by the experience. As we finally made it up the end of the hill, many men had their hats off and were singing to us. I have never felt respect as such a tangible thing as it was in that moment and it felt incredible. Logically, I knew that the men didn't just take it easy while we worked. They worked to prepare the way for us but we still got the experience of knowing how tough it would have been to pull just as women. Some men were crying and saying encouraging things to us. My husband, who knew how worried I was about this, came to check on me and seemed deeply concerned and that was a beautiful moment for me. We spread out a blanket and had a picnic lunch with our family. Our workhorse son had pushed & pushed & pushed himself and went to stand up but couldn't feel his legs and fell on top or our youngest son. He cried and was taken to medical people to get monitored. Our workhorse son put so much blame on himself and couldn't be comforted, even though the only reason he even fell was because of how hard he pushed in every moment, never allowing himself proper time and care to recover. My heart really ached for him. The younger son ended up being okay and we packed up and kept walking. We got to camp about 2:30. We set up and again two of our daughters just curled up to sleep immediately. About 4:00, everybody was required to attend a hoe-down. I had gone to a hoe-down a month before the trek and had the time of my life but after logging nearly 17 miles with a handcart across rough paths, my feet were not cheering for the experience. We had to bother and bother and bother our girls to get them up and over to the hoe down and then we found out they hadn't really participated once it started anyway.

I'm not going to lie-my feet never did delight in this hoe-down but I still had fun and enjoyed the music. We had dinner and then held a devotional with our kids. This time our approach was even more casual and much to my surprise, the kids were not only open to it, we introduced ideas and it was our kids that carried the conversations and engaged. I loved that experience. One of the girls in our group that was always sleeping said her biggest struggle was mental illness and she talked a little bit about it. She has a crazy schedule at home, usually getting up at 4 a.m. each day and go-go-going until 11 or so every single night so it's impossible not to feel sympathetic toward her decision to just constantly climb in the tent and sleep as often as possible. I felt proud of our kids for the ways they started to open up. We went to sleep. I was literally right on a huge rocky lump from my shoulder to my hips. I didn't realize until everybody was going to sleep so I didn't have many options. I was so tired that I opted to just make the best of it and while I didn't sleep wonderfully, I did sleep a bit, more than the night before.

On the 3rd day, it was more of a recovery day and we only had to go shy of 4 miles. It was still challenging though. Just before we headed out, we were given a list of challenges to give our family. One person had to carry a 10 lb. (flour) "baby." One person had to have their arm in a sling. Once person had to wear an eye patch. One person couldn't speak English. One person couldn't help in any way. In spite of the challenges, we got to camp early and had lunch. I told my husband not to set up the tent. He & I had done much of the work alone (except for our workhorse son) and once the tent was up, 2 of our girls would just go hibernate anyway. I said if they wanted to sleep so much, maybe they should help set up the tent. It worked like a charm. It wasn't long before they were pulling the tent out and getting it almost all set up on their own-they really were motivated! Later, everybody was supposed to attend 11 game stations. I tried getting the girls up to go but they weren't interested at all. With them not being our own kids, I had an issue with boundaries. The only way we could get them there would be to drag them out of the tent in their sleeping bags and that seemed to me like overstepping. We just let them stay and sleep. We caught a lot of crap for not having our whole family with us. I know that this is where I felt most rebellious. For some kids, they could do all this physical stuff and still go play games like champions and that's great. For some kids (and me), the physical challenges had been great and playing games just felt like too much. I wish this would have been more optional. Once the games were over, there were so many kids that kept playing that I think they still would have gotten plenty of participation even if it wasn't mandatory. The other thing I felt was that there was a big division between the kids who're athletic and the kids who aren't so much that. I felt torn about this. I felt like an outsider. I know at least one of our sons did, too, and didn't want to participate. One of our daughters that didn't sleep, participated in this stick-pulling game and beat person after person after person.

She hadn't been helping much with the cart and I let her know that now we could see how strong she was and we would expect more from her the next day with the cart. All the kids got letters from home and some time to read them. One of our sons, who's friend had tagged along with our family a lot, really began to open up and I had a great time chatting the night away with them. The time for spiritual pursuits was spent in a large group and we found out that our 2 daughters who had slept alot hadn't felt physically challenged. We decided the last day would really be up to our kids to pull more of the weight. Preston & I didn't touch the cart for as long as possible on our final day, which was 6.2 miles. Our 3 girls ended up doing awesome pulling the cart, even though the daughter who had won stick-pulling said she regretted letting us know she was strong. One of the girls stepped in a deep hole and twisted her ankle too bad to go on though so she was out. One of our sons, who had struggled just to walk the entire trip, continued to struggle. Preston was the first to help with the cart and eventually, I felt like they needed me so I did step in and end up helping after all but our kids did more than they had and I felt like we had done all we could to make sure they had experienced challenges. Our workhorse son hit a point where he said he couldn't go on. For him to admit this must have meant he was so far past his limit but the kid who struggled just to walk said he couldn't go on either and our workhorse dug deep, put one arm around the other son, put his other hand on the bar to pull and pep-talked the other kid the rest of the way, probably 1-1 1/2 more miles. That was an inspiring event to witness. One of our sons who took it a little easy here and there early on really stepped up the more we gave him the chance to and he said he wasn't ready to go home yet. We made it to the buses, ate lunch, and got on the bus together. We were reunited with our injured daughter, who was given crutches and soda pop. Most of the kids slept on the way home. I wanted to but our bus driver drove horrible and kept almost falling asleep so I obsessed about keeping a watch on him. It was a scary ride! We got back to a parking lot. Everybody retrieved their items and headed home with their real families. We have plans to get together in a few weeks and I hope our kids choose to stay in touch longer. I can't believe how much love I feel for them after just a few days. I didn't like trek as a whole and found the physical toll it took to be miserable but when I think about all the little beautiful moments and experiences we had, I love it so much. Combined, I'm glad I got to go but I'm also glad it's over.

One last little note: We wanted to give our kids our contact information and knew they wouldn't have much room but also thought if we gave them a little paper, it would get lost. I had the idea of using empty prescription bottles. This also allowed us to give them a few little treats as well. When we handed them to our kids the last morning, they started bragging to other families: "Our parents gave us drugs!" I knew we were meant to be together because they had been naming the birds around our camp things like "Heroin" and "Methamphetamine." We were destined to be in a group together.

Homeopathy

A friend of mine took me to a documentary last year about homeopathy. I had heard the word homeopathy but didn't really know what it was. I really liked the show about it and learned new things. I'm somewhat open to alternative medicine. After the movie, there was a guy that's a homeopath that talked a little. He has a store and does appointments for anybody that wants to see him and it's less than our co-pay to see a doctor.

I don't trust people usually and I trusted him right away. I went home and looked up his store and kept a bookmark but I needed time before I was ready to really go. Now that we're to May, I finally talked myself into taking my boys in. I have a son that's been on Zyrtec for allergies for too many years now and Dave, the homeopath, was great with him. He talked about a lot of details about his personality and I couldn't believe how good he was at getting it right.

My other son has been throwing up for months and is sick all the time. I've recently watched him struggle more than I can handle. He's been to the doctor, been to a specialist, had a scope done with anesthesia, been put on different medications. Nothing seemed to help or explain the problems or why they're getting worse and the doctors just keep doing ineffective things while our medical bills are mounting. My son throws up so much and his whole life is affected all the time and nobody can give me any answers. That's what made me finally call Dave. He was brilliant. The appointment was about 15 minutes and he said, "You've got a parasite in your large intestine" and gave us some treatments we can use to get rid of the problem, which will take about 6 weeks to be certain.

I didn't know what to think but decided we'll try the treatments. It's far less money for them than we've been spending. When I told my husband the diagnosis, he said that makes a lot of sense. He had a friend with the same problem and he just kept getting really sick. Parasites weren't on the doctors' radars but I read up on it and it does make sense. It seems a little crazy to me that we spend months seeing medical professionals and they just draw a blank but we see this guy for 15 minutes, he never even touches my son, and figures out the problem. Because of such a good experience with both boys, I had to come back the next day for something and called to see if they had an appointment for me to see Dave. I've been wanting to and they did. At my boys' appointments, he talked a little about personality but it was more medical. For my appointment, he figured out early on that it's my gallbladder that's the problem.

That wasn't on my radar but I read about it afterward and once again, it would put all the pieces together and make the most sense. However, Dave brushed that aside relatively quickly and wanted to talk more about emotional health. It's probably what I wanted (not so much from him but just in general) and what I needed but I wasn't expecting it and found it quite embarrassing. I'd barely sat down with this guy and he just knew personal things about me.

He asked if I'm a people pleaser and then started going into great detail as to how I function in life. I wasn't prepared for it! I felt really uncomfortable but that was yesterday and as I digest it, he's right about most of what he said and I want to take the treatments and see what happens. He's giving me something for my gallbladder issues and something else for my emotional issues. He told me to warn my husband that I will be changing a lot in the next few weeks. It seems crazy to me but kind of exciting as well. This is all new & drastically different and it seems to be impressively effective but time will tell. This is the start of our journey toward more enjoyable health.

Down the Toilet

I faced a difficult modern challenge this week that involves mourning the loss of all the items I had saved electronically over the last 20 years. I was starting to not trust my computer so much 2 years ago so I got an external hard drive (because it was WAY more affordable than a new computer) & transferred everything to it since it was a TB: pictures, journals, all of my music, and I had started writing a book I kept on there, the book I've been wanting to write for years. I'm not sure why I didn't keep my files on both the computer and the external hard drive. No explanation is good enough now but I guess part of the reason is that I'd never lost electronic information before so I didn't realize just how devastating it could be. I didn't think of it as a likely problem. I downloaded a few high-rated recovery programs & got nothing. I took the drive to Best Buy-couldn't fix it. I found a high-rated affordable place in California to send it and they said it was over their capabilities but referred me to another place that is crazy amazing. I had to spend $300 for damaged parts for them to try but ultimately, nothing could be recovered and I'm out of options. I found out the final call yesterday. This process took months and I didn't allow myself to think much about losing everything. I clung to a kernel of hope until now there is none. I can't even describe how upset I am.

I keep relatively detailed journals that I referred to for a variety of things over the years. Family would sometimes ask when certain things occurred and I could go back & find accurate answers. The last journal I printed was halfway through 2009 so 10 years of details is gone.

Pictures from the last 20 years are gone.

I keep wanting to hear songs, some of them a little obscure, and all of my music files are gone. I have accumulated a good deal of free music, when what I want is available through the library free downloads but over the years, I've probably spent a few hundred dollars on mp3s that are gone.

Starting over feels daunting. There's a part of me now that thinks, "Why put in the effort? It could just disappear for good anyway." The part of me that realizes that life must go on sees it a little bit another way. I try to be clean and organized but life gets crazy and stuff gets scrambled and sometimes I think I'm not doing as good as I'd like with getting rid of as much as I should. However, if there were some kind of emergency and our home or stuff got ruined, it would be hard but it would also be a clean slate. I guess I should think of electronics the same way. I just electronically got a clean slate. The little thing that upsets me most though is that I don't think I was sold a legitimate product in the first place. It was a Seagate brand drive. I ordered it off Amazon and made sure to buy it directly from the real company itself. I thought this was how to make sure I got the product I thought I was getting. I got the product & used it and everything was working for a while. There were no red flags that there was a problem. I never opened the enclosure to the drive, just for kicks or anything like that. I had never opened one before & didn't believe I had any reason to. When communicating with recovery companies, they asked for the serial number & then sent me pictures of the serial number sticker on the same kind of external hard drives but mine had none whatsoever and had never had one while in my possession. Also as recovery professionals handled the drive, they found it had been opened aggressively & they found fingerprints all over it.

I hadn't even ever opened the enclosure before it crashed so clearly, I would not have handled it in a way that would have resulted in fingerprints. It was past the warranty period so I didn't have that on my side but I contacted Seagate because I believed they had sold me a product that had been compromised from the beginning. Contacting them was a nightmare, especially since the most efficient method required me to put in the serial number, which was missing from my product so I could never complete that method. They just sent me some generic e-mail about sorry for my experiences. We learn from our mistakes faster than our successes & I can promise I won't make the same mistake again. It's just felt like a very big loss to me, so much of the details of my life have just been flushed away.

Daughter

I've been watching a series about a mother-daughter relationship and I finally got to the end of it and it just made me reflect on my relationship with my own daughter. Things are changing. She's an adult now for one thing. Even if I don't want to, I have to let go a little bit. If I've done my job right, everything will be okay and if I haven't, it feels too late to change much now. I would say that last sentence to her and laugh but I would mean it and know that I've made mistakes and still hope I did my job good enough. She's always been very independent in her thinking. That is one of her most beautiful and most annoying qualities. :) I love that she thinks for herself and always has but sometimes I didn't realize that an independent thinker would disagree with so many of my thoughts and ideas. It surprised me where the differences would kick in but she gives me respect most of the time in spite of our contrasting notions.

She has this boyfriend now (she's had a few and this one's different) and he is incredible with her but it's hard sometimes. Our time & experiences together are being slowly replaced & they still exist and continue but it's not what she seeks anymore the way she seeks time & experience with him. I believe it's natural but no matter when it would have evolved into this shift of her attention, I would not have been prepared. In the show I watched, the boyfriend asks the mom if he can marry her daughter. Of course the mom is single but I just started thinking about it, about what an honor it would be to be asked if it's okay if everything changes. Chances are good that I won't get asked and my heart already sees her happy and sees her embracing a future that's right for her and that makes me want to sing out that of course it's okay but the formality of the asking might not hurt. Here is this girl that I started praying to get when I was 14 years old but had to wait a lot of years for and we've been through everything, even coming close to losing her and fighting to keep her on this earth. I know her and she has taught me what unconditional love really is, both by forcing me to love her through hardships I never imagined going through with her and also by her loving me back in spite of my shortcomings. I know our relationship has to change all the time in little ways because our lives change and adapting keeps a relationship strong but the big adaptations, no matter how wonderful they are, can be a challenge and I just hope that we can always be close.