Why We Decided to Homeschool Part IV: The Little (Big) Things

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Why We Decided to Homeschool Part 4 The Little Big Things CradleRockingMama.com

Beyond concerns about the education system, socialization of our children, and food safety, there are a few other, little (and not so little) things that answer the question of why to homeschool. This post wraps up the series by addressing those little (big) things.

First, a logistical issue. We live in the country. The schools my children would attend are about a 20-25 minute drive away from our house.

I’ve observed the children in my area being picked up by the school bus at around 7:00 a.m., and being dropped off after school hours between 3:45 and 4:15 p.m.

If you’re keeping track, that means the kids are out of the house by 6:30 a.m. (because the school bus pickups are not AT our house; we would have to drive them there) and not home until 4:30 p.m.

TEN HOURS.

Ten hours out of every 24, my kids would be gone.

Since they sleep 11 hours per night, getting fed and ready for school would easily take an hour, and dinner time means a good hour and a half we are occupied, that means that if my children were to attend public schools, we would have a mere 30 minutes a day to spend any sort of fun, quality time as a family.

30 minutes.

We may as well ship the kids off to boarding school at that rate!

I could increase our quality time together by driving the kids to and from school every day, but that is easily 80-90 minutes of my day dedicated to just driving, to net us only an extra hour or so of time with the kids.

I’m sorry, but that is ridiculous.

Now for a not so little concern. The decision to homeschool, for me, began with concerns about public schools. When our food issues first began, I started thinking more seriously about the idea. Over the years of observing the school bus schedule, I really began researching how to homeschool.

However, it’s only recently that I’ve begun growing convicted that homeschooling is the right choice for our family. 

Yes, convicted. 

After reading more about homeschooling, I started to look at homeschooling through the lens of my faith.

God says to raise your children up right, and when they are grown, they will not waver. He also says to be in the world, but not of it.

Both of those are really good admonitions, and both are a true challenge to achieve in the world today.

It is concerning to see what our modern culture glorifies, and what it ignores. You can hardly turn around these days without encountering something unwholesome, perverse, cruel, or just inane.

I’m disturbed by stories of teenagers hooking up, having babies, doing drugs, flaunting authority, eschewing responsibility, and even more concerned with the observation that those behaviors often continue well in to adulthood.

Harder to find examples of?

Honor. Integrity. Loyalty. Kindness. Truth. Respect. Faith. Hope. Charity. Love.

This world is a fallen world, and always has been. I can’t change that, and I can’t stop my children from living in it. 

But I believe this world encourages children to grow up too fast, before they are prepared to cope with the world in a healthy way. 

So while Darrel and I cannot change the world, we can try to do as God commands and raise our children right, helping them encounter the world in a judiciously controlled way.

They will not be denied the modern world, but we will expose them to facets of it as they are ready for it, not at ages far too young to understand what they are seeing, hearing, or reading.

I pray that by homeschooling, thereby remaining the primary influence in our sons lives, they will grow to be strong men of integrity who can seamlessly wander the world without being eaten up, churned around, and spit out by it.

I’ve grown convinced that while God doesn’t explicitly say to homeschool, choosing to homeschool is the right way for us to attempt to live up to the other things God does want us to do. 

On a less serious note, I look forward to the future, when I can finally utilize my job in a way that will make all the challenges I’ve been enduring this last year well worth it.

Free flights anywhere in the world, folks! Can you imagine a better way to teach the boys about WWII than to walk them through Dachau, see where the Berlin Wall stood, visit Pearl Harbor, and walk the beaches at Normandy?

What about Ancient Greece by visiting the Parthenon? Or the Roman Empire by a day at the Colosseum?

Stonehenge, the Tower of London, the Great Wall of China, maybe a trip Down Under?

The Revolutionary War by visiting Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore?

That’s what I call making history come to life!

We will someday have the opportunity to take a month or two every year and spend it doing intensive, hands on teaching via travel. The boys will learn languages, history, math (using currency exchange and budgeting for the trip), and more. Public schools just can’t offer that!

My kids will someday get to learn the history and languages of the world first hand, and Darrel and I get to go along for the ride. 

I simply can’t wait. 

Homeschooling is not the right choice for all families.

I know that, and have absolutely NO condemnation for anyone who chooses other options – including public schools.

My only hope in writing this series was to share our reasons for making this decision for our family, and encourage you to consider your options for what is best for your own family.

The decision on how to raise and educate our children is an important one, and conversation about the many options available can only bring about good things.

Deliberate actions always bring about the best results; I hope we will all be deliberate about raising our little future adults. 

Read the whole series:
Part 1: Concerns About Public Schools
Part 2: Socialization
Part 3: Food Issues
Part 4: The Little (Big) Issues

Why We Decided to Homeschool Part III: Food Issues

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Why We Decided to Homeschool Part III: Food Issues CradleRockingMama.com

I wish food issues played no part in our decision to homeschool.

I wish food issues were a non-issue in a multitude of places, but sadly, that is not so.

When you have children with food allergies, considering their safety when outside of your care is a matter of life and death.

However, as strange as it may sound to those parents who either deal with no food allergies or only IgE food allergies, our concerns about our children’s food intolerance’s are greater than our concerns about their IgE allergies.

The Food Allergy World has made terrific efforts to raise awareness of IgE allergies; most people nowadays at least know what an Epi-pen is, even if they aren’t completely well versed in the symptoms of anaphylaxis.

Food intolerance’s, however, have not made such strides.

In my experience, people tend to not take food intolerance’s very seriously. Because the symptoms of a food intolerance are usually delayed and don’t threaten immediate death, it’s easy for people to not worry as much about them.

Anyone who suffers with a food intolerance will earnestly counter that opinion, but trying to convince people of the seriousness of food intolerance’s is difficult. Usually it requires the doubter witnessing a reaction themselves to change their minds.  In the meantime, this attitude is very worrying to parents of children with food intolerance’s.

Now, if we were to send our children to public school, we would absolutely sit down with the administrators and teachers to arrange a 504 plan to ensure our kids safety.

After 5 years of living in this world, though, I must admit that Darrel and I are wary of the effectiveness of 504 plans.

While we do hear amazing stories of how good a particular teacher or school is at following the rules of a child’s 504 plan, we also hear far too many stories of 504 plans being completely ignored or only loosely adhered to.

From personal observation, I’ve concluded that the effectiveness of a 504 plan is dependent on the staff at the school.

Certainly there are legal options available to a parent whose child’s 504 plan is being ignored, but who wants to deal with that?

All any parent wants is for assured safety for their child. The lack of import given food intolerances makes Darrel and I concerned that the majority of our children’s food issues will not be treated with the concern they need.

While we might be lucky and find diligent, caring, efficient teachers at the school our children would attend, there is always the chance that we would find ourselves in a constant battle over the guidelines we arranged.

Frankly, I don’t have the time or energy to deal with that.

Sadly, the danger of food allergic/intolerant children attending public school is not limited to the diligence of teachers and administrators. After all, our children would attend public school with other children, and other parents will be involved in many activities for all the children, including our own.

That means our children would be exposed to two other sources of potential danger: food allergy bullying from the other children, and willful disobedience and ignorance of the other parents.

Food allergy bullying is a growing danger to food allergic/intolerant children.

Situations of peers deliberately contaminating a food allergy child’s food or learning space (such as wiping peanut butter on a peanut-allergic child’s desk or trying to shove it in their face) are happening with growing frequency.

In addition to reading about this phenomenon, I’ve personally heard from two mothers whose young children have been forced to change schools or classrooms because of a food allergy bully.

It’s not a pleasant situation. It’s a dangerous, potentially deadly or debilitating situation for food allergy/intolerant children.

As for the parents of the other students, every few months another disgraceful article or blog post is published by a parent who is “fed up” with all these restrictions being placed on the food their kids can bring to school. (Many of the comments on this article are great examples of the attitudes of fellow parents.)

I personally observed a Facebook exchange where a lady whined about not being able to bring cupcakes to class for her sons birthday because a student in his class had allergies.

Every single commenter on her post took her side. Some merely agreed that it was a difficult situation for the rest of the parents and students, and some went so far as to say that they would stand outside the classroom and hand out the cupcakes to all the kids as they left to go home for the day anyway.

Not one person was horrified at the thought that they might actually kill or maim a child in their pursuit of confectionery celebration.

That makes my blood run cold.

Evidence shows that food allergy and food intolerant parents are making great headway in changing the landscape of public schools to be a safe place for all children.

Unfortunately, the end goal has not been achieved, and far too many food allergy/intolerant children are sickened or killed in public schools due to lackadaisical 504 adherence, insane restrictions on carrying Epi-pens outside of the nurses office, cruel classmates and selfish parents.

Darrel and I feel that our children’s food issues are complicated enough that it will be nearly impossible to create a 504 plan that can be easily adhered to (I mean, how easy is it to convince people to take The Meanies seriously?), and are unwilling to risk our children’s health to the other potential dangers public school brings.

I will be perfectly honest about this next point. While concerns about public schools, socialization, and the other concerns I’ll address tomorrow certainly had me leaning towards homeschooling, it was the concerns about food issues that sealed the deal for me.

I can supplement my children’s education if I feel they are not being properly challenged in public school.

I can work diligently to instill our values and ethics in our children, put them in situations where they must deal with people other than their peers, and otherwise mitigate the effects of poor socialization from public schools.

But I cannot eradicate the pain and internal damage caused by exposure to an intolerance, or, if exposed to an IgE allergen, bring my children back to life.

Tomorrow wraps up this series with an explanation of other factors that played into our decision.

Read the whole series:
Part 1: Concerns About Public Schools
Part 2: Socialization
Part 3: Food Issues
Part 4: The Little (Big) Things

Do you worry about your food allergic/intolerant child in public schools? Have your 504 plans been adhered to properly?

Why We Decided to Homeschool Part II: Socialization

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Why We Decided to Homeschool Part 2 Socialization CradleRockingMama.com

One of the most common concerns I’ve heard people express about Homeschooling is this:

What about socialization?

Originally, I shared that concern. How on earth were my kids going to learn how to get along with their peers without being in a public school?

Then I thought about it a bit more.

Let’s start with the definition of “socialize”. From Merriam-Webster:

Full Definition of SOCIALIZE

transitive verb
1
:  to make social; especially :  to fit or train for a social environment
2
a :  to constitute on a socialistic basis <socialize industry>

b :  to adapt to social needs or uses

3
:  to organize group participation in <socialize a recitation>
intransitive verb
:  to participate actively in a social group

Dictionary.com defines SOCIALIZATION as follows:

noun
1.
a continuing process whereby an individual acquires a personal identity and learns the norms, values, behavior, and social skills appropriate to his or her social position.

2.
the act or process of making socialistic : the socialization of industry.

Let’s address the widely held belief that the only proper way to socialize children is via public school.

I  now have to ask “why?”

Why is public school believed to be the only way to properly teach children how to “participate actively in a social group”?

If you’re anything like me, much of your education in how to participate in a social group did NOT come from your years in public school; instead, it was gleaned from outside activities like church, Girl Scouts, dance classes, etc.

In fact, I would say that the very situation of being in public school makes it nearly impossible for an “individual (to) acquire a personal identity”, considering the well-known fact that schoolyard teasing, cliques, and even bullying are hallmarks of the “social scene” in public schools.

Let’s face it; peer pressure is intense, and school yard teasing can be brutal. 

How can a child discover who they truly are and grow confident in their sense of self when at the slightest mis-step they are brutally condemned and even ostracized for their differences?

Sure, most of us survived the school social scene and lived to tell the tale, but how many of us gained our actual inborn sense of self during our school years? How many of us actually gained that self-awareness years later, either in college or during our ’20’s?

The aim of public school socialization might be a development of an individuals sense of self, but the actual outcome is of thousands of children striving for conformity.

Feeling as though one does not “fit in” with peers is the basis for many young adult novels, made for TV movies, and therapy sessions as adults. Do we really feel it is necessary to endure that in order to function in society?

This ties in with our observations of how social interaction with peers has influenced our oldest son, Jed, already.

From birth, Jed was a charming, friendly, engaging little boy who shared everything freely, played nicely, and had an innate sense of right and wrong.

At one of our playground visits, however, he attempted to play with other children in the sandbox. They would not share their toys, grabbed Jed’s toys and refused to give them back, literally turned their backs on him, and generally behaved horribly.

The very next time we went to the playground, Jed mimicked their behavior, much to my embarrassment and chagrin.

We have had to work diligently for two years to help him “un-learn” horrible practices he learned from other children.

I shudder to think what my sweet, kind, loving son would turn in to after years of isolated exposure to other badly behaved children.

That experience was the first time I actually considered what the influence of peers versus the influence of adults would bring upon a child. It helped me to realize that there is an entirely different perspective we should utilize when considering the socialization of our children. We need to ask the question:

how can our children learn to function in the “real world” by being isolated in an artificial situation with legions of other socially ignorant children?

As an example, say you want to learn a new skill. Skateboarding, skydiving, knitting, car repair, or underwater basket weaving, it hardly matters. As a novice, do you seek out the insight and wisdom of other newbies? Or do you search for a teacher/mentor who has plenty of experience in your chosen skill?

I think the answer is clear; experience and wisdom are key to development and growth of any new skill.

Including socialization.

So why is it considered so absurd that a child could be raised and taught at home, thereby primarily learning how to properly socialize in the world from older siblings, parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and extracurricular activity leaders? These people have, theoretically, far better social skills than their child’s fellow gradeschoolers!

This perspective would argue that it is BETTER for children’s social skills to be home schooled; not only would they still encounter plenty of children in outside activities, church, and at the playground, but their primary introduction to how to easily communicate and get along with others would come from a wider variety of experienced, seasoned adults.

They would learn how to be comfortable in ANY social setting, regardless of the age and experience of the company they are sharing.

Homeschooling families often view socialization through this perspective, and the studies back them up. This article cites many studies, so click through if you’d like proof.

In the end, Darrel and I have come to the conclusion that the naysayers are right: socialization DOES matter.

That’s part of the reason why we’re choosing to home school our children.

Read the whole series:
Part 1: Concerns About Public Schools
Part 2: Socialization
Part 3: Food Issues
Part 4: The Little (Big) Things

What do you think about socialization?

Why We Decided to Homeschool Part I: Concerns About Public Schools

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Why We Decided to Homeschool Part 1 Concerns About Public Schools CradleRockingMama.com

This is the first post in the series “Why We Decided to Homeschool”. Since this was a joint decision, I asked Darrel to share his thoughts – especially about our first issue. Without further ado, and for his first appearance on my blog, here is what my husband has to say about his concerns about public schools:

Homeschooling vs. Public Schooling

We all want the best for our children. We want our children to be prepared to excel in life. We try to help our children grow into the best people that they can be. There are multiple routes to achieve this; for some it’s public schools and for others it’s homeschooling. This is by no means a condemnation of teachers and administrators at public schools, but rather a statement of the weaknesses in viewing education as a system.

My Mom was a public school teacher. I have many friends who work for public schools. I work at a public university. I considered becoming a teacher at various points in my life. My problem is not with the teachers.

My problem is with the laws, rules, and decisions regarding educational spending. 

I feel that public schools do not focus on gifted artists and academics to the degree that they should. This includes all those extra-curricular programs that prepare our children for life such as 4-H, Quiz Bowl, FBLA, FFA, DECA, Gifted and Talented, and more.

A reason for homeschooling

There are many reasons to choose homeschooling for a child. One of the reasons that I have considered for years is the way education is applied by the public school system. My wording here is purposeful. Public schooling is a system and the overall course of education is dictated as a system – rather than plans for educations. The state and national programs do not take individuals into account and are geared toward ALL students at once. When applying education to all students the system must  focus on groupings of students that need the most help to meet minimum requirements.

Goal seeking in public schooling vs. homeschooling

Primarily the public school system is interested in achieving specific goals. A certain percentage of children who meet a given criteria is the general format for these goals. This means that the system must focus on children who do not  meet those goals, while ensuring that children already meeting them maintain their current level.

Through this goal seeking the public school system is pushing everyone to intellectual equality AT THE LOW END.

This is partially the fault of common culture. We spend more money per student on athletics than we do the arts and intellectually gifted because sports are more popular.  I’m sure you can find articles about the likelihood of Johnny becoming a pro athlete rather than a well paid professional, but the bottom line is the latter is more likely. This means we are not spending to push the gifted beyond their current level. Are public schools required to have athletics programs? Are public schools required to meet academic standards? With homeschooling you can put the focus and seek the goals you want.

I’m sure someone is thinking “but, we do spend money on academics”. Yes, but our focus is not on academics, the focus is athletics and entertainment. This focus perpetuates the race to mediocrity.

Tailored education in homeschooling

The other part of the race to mediocrity is a focus on lower performing students. Too often the schools have an unrealistic set of goals and focus hard on meeting them. This means they siphon money from gifted programs to pull up the lower performers to meet those goals.

This means our schools aren’t pushing higher; they are not pushing for academic excellence.

They are pushing for the absolute lowest requirement.

With homeschooling we, as parents, can tailor to the educational needs of the individual rather than the whole.

A quick read through http://www.arkansased.gov/esea-flexibility gives an example of this. This page states that the state board of education in Arkansas is “targeting supports to any group that is not meeting its targets.”

I’m sure that any teacher or administrator at the level of personal interaction with students will tell you it’s about helping struggling students. The problem with that is the teachers are working within a system that isn’t interested in the individual, but in meeting overall goals for the whole. Those who already meet the goals are not specifically targeted for improvement.

Another line from this same page states that the accountability system “is particularly focused on intensive supports and interventions for schools that are struggling the most.”

With homeschooling you can focus on the needs of the child, not the entire systems areas of weakness.

For instance your child may be a whiz at math and this means tailoring their curriculum to advanced math while just meeting requirements for this student in other areas. The math whiz in a public school is going to be bored to tears by the repetitive nature of already mastered material.

Homeschooling is a way out of the SYSTEM

Homeschooling is a way out of the system and into real learning and education. Oh, the child will still be meeting the system standards, but they can do that at an accelerated pace. They can get through the system check-boxes and begin to specialize in whatever they want.

Carrie and I discussed this even before Jed was born. We both agreed that high school was boring most of the time. We were not challenged at the high school level. So by homeschooling we could skip all the boring for our children and let them specialize. Whether that specialization is as a plumber, electrician, mechanic, musician, engineer or research chemist, they can focus on what they want during the time of life when they have the real drive and support at home to do it.

Homeschooling and choices

The race to mediocrity in public schools is a great reason to choose homeschooling. Public schools slowly push everyone to the middle. With homeschooling you can educate your children so much faster and allow your child to start doing what they want earlier in life. The choice to homeschool means less time for the adult, but more time for the child.

(Carrie here again)

Obviously I agree with Darrel’s points. I also agree with his perspective on teachers. There are some truly excellent, life-changing teachers out there. These are the teachers that inspire, motivate, and encourage children to learn more than they know and become more than they are. These teachers are awesome!

These teachers are rare. 

Equally rare, however, are the truly horrible teachers. The ones that make kids hate school, hate learning, and hate them. While I had more than my share of those rotten, stinking, awful teachers during my school  years, I acknowledge that I was simply unlucky.

Most teachers are perfectly fine and adequate. Maybe even better than average.

So, as he said, our concerns about public schools do not stem from the teachers, but from the system itself.

For us, those concerns can be boiled down to two things. The teachers have no choice; they must: 1) follow the guidelines given them by state and federal authorities, no matter how ridiculous and unhelpful, and 2) do their best to teach without the ability to truly address the needs of each child.

Darrel basically addressed both of those points in his writing, since the reason the teachers cannot focus on the individual as much as they would surely like is because of requirements sent down from state and federal authorities, but I’d like to take the issue of guidelines a step further.

Public education in America has been, for all intents and purposes, completely taken over by federal mandates. While States still, theoretically, call the shots on many issues, the bottom line is money. If States want federal education funding, they must comply with federal rules. Period.

Most schools are woefully underfunded these days, even with the federal funding. There’s no way they are going to say ‘no’ to that money.

What that means is that all these brilliant, well-produced, strenuously vetted educational decrees (sarcasm) thought up by geniuses who have never tried to teach a class in their life become the road map our children must follow in school. Think “No Child Left Behind“. Think “Race to the Top“. Think “Common Core“.

While there are advocates for all of those endeavors, Darrel and I are not fans. We feel they hurt children more than help them.

Feel free to look this up for yourself to decide the matter on your own. There’s no shortage of commentary on all of them. (Try here, here, here, and here, for starters.)

From the beginning of my school years, the frequent testing to measure performance was frustrating. I was lucky to be an excellent test-taker, but many of my fellow students were not. They grew anxious and stressed out by the idea of taking a huge, federal test to measure how smart they were. It was distressing to observe.

Beyond that, even back in the 1980’s, we would often drop any and all actual education for weeks prior to a big, federally mandated test to simply work on “test preparation”.

There was no learning going on in the classrooms for the month preceding such a test. Only drilling to ensure we would score as high as possible, so the school wouldn’t lose funding.

That is hardly my idea of a wise way to spend time in a school.

Today, the situation is worse. Tests are more frequent and funding is even more directly tied to the test results. Children are “failing” tests that cannot possibly measure any true hallmark of learning. Teachers are frustrated that they cannot truly teach the way they would like to; the way they know the students need and deserve.

They are hamstrung by the federal regulations that are tied to the funding that keeps the school doors open at all. It’s a vicious Catch-22. 

As for Part 2 of our concerns, that teachers must teach without being able to address the needs of each child, that is pretty self-explanatory.

A teacher with 30 children in her class simply does not have the time to truly focus on each child to ensure they get the attention they need. It’s not a failing of the teachers; it’s a logistical impossibility.

While that method has worked, to some degree or another, for a long time, it isn’t ideal and does little to ensure children reach their full potential.

As Darrel said, with Homeschooling, we can focus on our children and their strengths (and weaknesses) much more than would be possible in a public school environment.

Even with Homeschooling, there will still be tests for my kids to take that measure what they know. However, Darrel and I will have a much better understanding of whether our children are actually LEARNING than we would if they were in school most of the day.

With Homeschooling, our children will not waste hours, days, and even months of their lives drilling for tests that do nothing to enhance their individual education. They will spend every moment of their actual school time doing what all parents hope their kids will do: learn to think, learn to reason, and learn to love learning.

“Ah, but school isn’t just about learning!” I can hear some of you thinking. “School is about learning to function in the world and socialize with other kids!”

I’ll address that concern in tomorrow’s post. 

Read the whole series:
Part 1: Concerns About Public Schools
Part 2: Socialization
Part 3: Food Issues
Part 4: The Little (Big) Things

Whether you Homeschool or not, do you also have concerns about the frequent tests, the lack of personal attention to the children, and the ever-changing mandates passed down from government in our schools? 

Letting Your Kids Quit (And a New Series on Homeschooling)

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Letting Your Kids Quit CradleRockingMama.com

It’s official. Darrel and I have decided to homeschool our sons.

I’m sure I’ve mentioned it as a distinct possibility before, but now we have made the call and bought curriculum for Jed’s Kindergarten year.

In some circles, homeschooling is perfectly normal and acceptable. For others, though, it’s still considered strange and unacceptable. Since I will likely begin posting at least occasional posts about homeschooling, I thought I would start by outlining exactly why we made this decision.

Hint: it’s about more than just food issues. 

In fact, this decision is so layered it seems the only way to give justice to our decision is to dedicate an entire post to each point that influenced our choice.

The rest of this week will be dedicated to the series Why We Decided to Homeschool, and I hope that reading our thoughts about why we made this decision will help you when making your own decisions about how your children will be educated.

As parents, we all need to think carefully about how our children might become the adults we hope they will be. Education is a big part of that.

I hope that this series will bring up some good conversation about your children’s futures, whether here on the blog, or in your own homes. Maybe it will encourage you to homeschool, maybe it will encourage you to send your kids to public schools but supplement their education in other ways, and maybe it will simply encourage you to think about this in a way you never have before.

In the end, though, I hope it will help…somehow.

Before that first post tomorrow, though, I want to give a little update on the kiddos.

Thursday evening two weeks ago, we took Jed to his last martial arts class. He told his instructor that he wasn’t going to come back to class anymore. I stopped auto-pay for the monthly classes.

Jed was fine, but I thought I was going to cry.

Some might wonder why, when we have only JUST started engaging with the world, would we suddenly quit martial arts?

Well, as much as Jed loves martial arts, he has one huge problem with it.

For about three months now, Jed has complained that “it’s SO LOUD! It hurts my brain!”

It had gotten to the point where every time we drove to class, Jed complained the entire drive that he didn’t want to go because of the noise.

Added to that, with working so much, my parents were having to take him more frequently than I’d anticipated. For us, it’s a 30 minute drive one way for a 30 minute class. That’s quite a bit of driving, but it isn’t totally  insane.

For my parents, though, it’s a 75 minute drive one way for a 30 minute class. Absolutely nuts!

They were getting annoyed with it. Even though it is our car, it’s their time and effort, and I had to respect that.

In the end, we asked Jed what he wanted to do. He said he wanted to quit.

I have problems with that.

I don’t like quitting things.

I’ve always been the kind of person that sees things through to the end.

I feel like letting kids quit things sends the message that they can just walk away whenever stuff gets hard, and that’s not a message I want to send.

I went along with this decision, though, for a few reasons.

One, I was outnumbered! Both my parents and Darrel were in favor of letting Jed quit.

Two, Jed never wavered. Every time I asked him if he liked martial arts, he would say “Yes! I love it! But it’s SO LOUD it hurts my brain! I don’t want to go any more.” If he had ever changed his mind, I would have chalked this decision up to the whims of a 4 year old and refused to let him quit. He never wavered, though.

Three, I’ve been in the “special needs kids” world long enough to know that Sensory Processing Disorder is real, and I suspect Jed has it to some small degree. The fact that his only complaint about martial arts was the noise made me wonder if he simply has a sensory overload there.

I have issues with noise, too. When people try to have a conversation with me and there is a TV on in the background, it drives me absolutely crazy! I feel like my skin is crawling and have a hard time focusing on the conversation.

Background noise in general, like in large crowds or noisy restaurants, has that effect on me.

Even when I can calm myself down in those situations, I usually am not capable of actually “hearing” people talking to me. My mom used to get SO mad at me when I was younger and we were out in public. She would call for me, and I wouldn’t answer or even indicate I heard her. Even when she screamed my name, I truly did NOT hear her at all.

The background noise was too overwhelming. I had shut down.

So I have great sympathy for Jed’s plight. I understand where he’s coming from.

That is why I let him quit.

Unfortunately, it leaves me in a bit of a pickle. I mean, what activities for kids exist that aren’t noisy in some way??

Jed told me he wants to keep playing tee ball. He said, “It’s very noisy, but I like that noise. It’s not so loud.” Yes, that is vague and convoluted, but I understand what he’s trying to say. Being outdoors, the noise is dissipated enough that it doesn’t “hurt his brain”.

Apparently outdoor activities will be okay for him.

But tee ball is over with this year, and I can’t think of any other activities for his age that haven’t already started (and therefore are too late to join now).

Sigh.

I’m not thrilled that he quit martial arts. But I’m encouraged that he was showing great growth and progression in martial arts (despite the noise), still wants to play tee ball, and shows interest in other things. Hopefully, with time, we’ll find a perfect fit for Jed; one that helps him grow and mature…and doesn’t hurt his brain.

Meanwhile, Zac still has his wretched cold, and has managed to give it to Darrel! (Poor guys can’t catch breaks.)

Food trials are on hold for the time being, until Zac feels better.

I’m not happy about this cold. 

I did, however, find a You-Pick-It organic blueberry place that we hope to hit up this week, so we should have plenty of blueberries for Zac when his little nose stops running like crazy!

Oh, and our main goat milk lady is having a hard time keeping up with the demands of milking this year. Her husband is in training for a promotion and she’s having to handle the farm mostly on her own for now; she planned to milk this year, but it’s proving to be a challenge for her to cope with. She’s not sure she can continue to provide us milk.

We love her, and so she wouldn’t feel the slightest bit guilty if she decided to stop milking, I contacted our original goat milk lady and she graciously put us back on her customer list for the summer.

She’s not nearly as conveniently located as our new goat milk lady, but it is necessary. Looks like we’re back on a bi-monthly “goat milk run” for the duration.

With luck, our sweetheart (and very close by) goat milk lady will have more help next year and we can go back to her for the 2016 season. (Or maybe keep both ladies next year, so we absolutely don’t have to struggle through the winter “dry” goat milk months!)

The last month, I’ve been on a quest to Clean Out The House, Sell The Good Stuff, And Make Some Money. Yesterday I sold the boys Thomas the Tank Engine toddler bed for a little more than half what we paid for it. Whew! 

The boys were not thrilled with the loss; they cried over the bed, saying they loved it and wanted to keep it…even though neither of them has slept in it for over a year!

Once I told Jed that we had to sell it so we could buy them birthday presents this year, though, he suddenly was much more amenable to the idea. That child really, really wants a bike!

I’ll admit that Mama was on a Mission and had no qualms about putting that ad on Craigslist…until the time came to turn the bed over to the new owners. Then I got a little sad.

That was Jed’s first Big Boy Bed, and he adored it. Even though Zac never slept in it, they both enjoyed playing on it, pretending they were driving Thomas. I felt like I just sold a part of my childrens childhood, and that stung a bit (especially on the heels of the lost hard drive).

It’s ridiculous, I know! That bed was going to have to go eventually. No way could we store a plastic bed for use by our grandchildren! Better to sell it now, when we can get some money for it (and, frankly, when we NEED the money from it) than to wait until the boys have somehow destroyed or damaged it so much we can’t get a dime for it.

Still. At that moment, it stung.

Then I got home and rearranged the boys bedroom. 

You know what? They have a HUGE bedroom! I never really realized it until that big ol’ bed was gone. I’m thinking a lot of the boys toys can be moved into their room, and out of my living room now.

Yep. The sting is gone.

Sure, they’re growing up, which means parts of their childhood will disappear, and that is sad at times.

But life goes on. Sometimes, it brings sweet with the sad.

I’m looking forward to getting some of my living room back.

 So…what’s new with you?

Egg-Free, Gluten-Free Salmon Patties – Revisited!

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5 Comments

Salmon Patties Egg-Free Gluten-Free CradleRockingMama.com

One of the most frequently searched-for recipes found on my site is my egg-free, gluten-free Salmon Patties. It makes me so happy to know I’m helping some people figure out how to make something delicious again after losing eggs and gluten from their diet!

Unfortunately, that recipe was from my early days of blogging. The photos are TERRIBLE. A few months ago I dug out those old photos with the plan to edit them to make them look a whole lot better. Then American Airlines stole my hard drive and almost all the original photos I took for this blog are gone…including the salmon patty photos. Grrr.

Well, the other night I decided to make salmon patties for dinner again.

Since Zac can have eggs, I usually make them with eggs for Darrel, Zac and myself, and separate a small amount of salmon batter for Jed that is egg-free.

The other night, as it happened, we were out of eggs.

Egg-free salmon patties for everyone!

We’ve grown up quite a bit since that first salmon patty recipe; back then, I used canned salmon and called it “good enough”.

Now, with histamine issues, we buy our salmon from Vital Choice seafood. They catch the fish, clean it, and flash freeze it right there on the boat. This salmon is probably the lowest histamine fish you can find anywhere!

Our salmon patties now start with fresh, beautiful real salmon.

I suddenly realized that I could take new photos of the salmon patties to update that recipe! So I grabbed the camera and took some beautiful pics.

Then I realized that since then, I’ve made a few adjustments to my original recipe. (Big surprise that I tweaked something, right?) I decided to just write a whole new egg-free, gluten-free salmon patty recipe to satisfy my Google friends, rather than just updating the photos off the old recipe.

Here’s how I make egg-free salmon patties now:

Start with salmon. I’ve used the salmon raw and tried to make patties that way, and it works; it’s just so much nicer and easier to do when the salmon is already cooked.

Bake the plain salmon at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes until it’s nice and flaky.

Take that lovely baked salmon and throw it in a bowl. Grab a whisk and use it to break the salmon into flaky bits.

Flaked Salmon CradleRockingMama.com

Once the salmon is flaked up, start your pan heating up. Add some oil or fat to a skillet, and set it over medium heat. Make sure it’s nice and hot before you ever put a patty in to make sure you get the prettiest salmon patties ever!

While we can all eat the same salmon patty, now, we can’t use the same oil. Zac only has tallow as a safe cooking fat, and since that is harder to come by than olive oil, I try to save it just for him. So I cooked the patties in two separate pans. Doing so helped me see a distinct difference in how the patties come out based on skillet type. If you have a cast iron skillet, USE IT. The patties come out absolutely gorgeous in cast iron!

In regular stainless steel pans? They cook okay, and they taste fine, but they don’t LOOK as beautiful.

Anyway, salmon is flaked, pans are heating on the stove, so now, start adding your “stuff”.

I now add about 3/4 c. of shredded zucchini to our salmon patties, because, why not? It adds nothing to the flavor, but it boosts the nutrition factor and makes the patties cook up nicer.

Salmon and Zucchini CradleRockingMama.com

I also simplify things by NOT making a batter to pour in. Instead, I add about 1/2 c. of quinoa flour directly to the salmon and stir it around. Then I add about 3 T. of water and stir it around. I usually end up adding about 5-6 total T. of water, but the end amount depends on how the batter turns out. Zucchini can vary a bit in how much wetness it adds to the recipe.

You can get creative, if you’d like; add some seasonings or different vegetables to make this unique every time!

Just know that in the end, you want to have a salmon patty mix that looks and feels just like the regular, egg and wheat flour mix of old.

Finished Salmon Patty Batter CradleRockingMama.com

Scoop some mix into your hand and shape it into a patty form. Then lay it in the skillet.

Side 1 Cooking Salmon Patties CradleRockingMama.com

Let the patties cook for 3-4 minutes, then flip them over. Cook for another 3-4 minutes.

Cooking Side 2 Salmon Patties CradleRockingMama.com

Then plate them up, add a side dish, and enjoy a delicious, egg-free, gluten-free salmon patty that tastes amazing!

Salmon Patties Yum CradleRockingMama.com

Look at how beautifully they cut into bites!

They Cut so Nicely CradleRockingMama.com

Oh, yum…

Delicious Salmon Patty Bite CradleRockingMama.com

Egg-Free, Gluten-Free Salmon Patties - Revisited!
 
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Prep time
Cook time
Total time
 
Delicious, crisp yet flaky, these egg-free, gluten-free salmon patties will satisfy anyone at the dinner table!
Author:
Recipe type: dinner
Serves: 12 patties
Ingredients
  • 1 lb. salmon
  • ¾ c. shredded zucchini
  • ½ c. quinoa flour
  • 5-6 T. water
  • salt & pepper (to taste)
  • seasonings (to taste)
Instructions
  1. Bake the salmon at 400 degrees for 15 minutes, or until nice and flaky.
  2. Put the baked salmon in a bowl; use a whisk to break it up into nice flakes.
  3. Start heating your oil in a skillet over medium heat on the stove.
  4. Add shredded zucchini, quinoa flour, and any salt, pepper and seasonings you wish to the salmon.
  5. Add 3 T. of water to the salmon. Stir together well.
  6. As needed, add more water, 1 T. at a time, to make the salmon patty batter look like regular egg and gluten filled salmon patty batter.
  7. Scoop the salmon into your hands and shape into patty form.
  8. Lay in the skillet, and cook for 3-4 minutes.
  9. Flip, then cook for an additional 3-4 minutes.
  10. Plate up those delicious salmon patties, and enjoy!

What do you like to add to your salmon patties?

 If you like this recipe, please share it! To get more great recipes like this in your in-box, subscribe so you don’t miss a thing!

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Corn-Free Everyday

3 Years Old with 15 Safe Foods!

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3 Years Old with 15 Safe Foods CradleRockingMama.com

Zac turned 3 years old yesterday.

For his birthday, he got his 15th safe food: baking soda.

It doesn’t sound like much, but we are ecstatic!

Baking soda doesn’t add much to his diet, really, but it makes everything he already has much better. Pancakes are fluffier, cookies are more real, waffles are possible, muffins aren’t thick. Things that were good before are now great!

I can’t believe he is 3 years old already. Two years and ten months ago, our lives seemed to grind to a halt with his FPIES diagnosis.

Somehow, though, the time has just flown by!

Honestly, I thought that by 3 years old we would have a far larger diet for Zac than the mere 15 foods we can now claim. I’ll admit to being a bit disappointed.

However, since I know exactly  how arduous those 15 foods were to obtain, I am beyond grateful he has as much to eat as he does. And I’m grateful that he is such a BIG eater!

Truly, I’m staggered by the differences between Zac and Jed, appetite-wise. Jed has a limited diet, too, but in comparison he can eat SO much more than Zac can! And Jed regularly refuses to eat at mealtimes, wanting to eat only the same few things over and over and over  again.

Zac, on the other hand, is incredibly limited in his diet but will scarf down huge quantities of almost anything I put in front of him. The child regularly packs away TWO steaks all by himself at dinner time, plus some sweet potatos as a side!

I’m sure it’s partly due to personality differences, but I also suspect it has a little to do with the fact that Zac was so very young when he had the majority of his reactions that he hasn’t associated “food” with “pain”. Poor Jed has made that association. It worries me about him…but that’s another story.

Thanks to Zac’s healthy appetite, though, he is currently weighing in at 32.2 pounds, solidly in the 75th percentile for weight!

For an FPIES child, especially one as sensitive as Zac and with as many triggers as him, that is a downright miracle.

He’s not just weighing good; he’s measuring 36.25 inches tall, which has him at the 49th percentile for height.

Since overall growth is important to measure with food issue children, not just weight, these two numbers have me breathing a sigh of relief and relaxing with the knowledge that, limited though his diet may be, he is doing very, very well.

For his birthday, we kept it simple. We’re planning a double birthday party for both boys in a few weeks, so yesterday we simply had a little cookout, made a modified quinoa cake and some banana ice cream for Zac, and sang Happy Birthday to him.

My parents did give him a toy tractor and a balloon, which thrilled him to no end, but the rest of his birthday celebration will come at the party.

Unfortunately, poor Zac has a little cold right now. It’s not too bad, but it’s bad enough that we skipped church in the morning and wrote off the two imperfect diapers he’s had this weekend as “sick kiddo” diapers instead of “FPIES reaction” diapers.

Still, the fact that I’m going to be at work all week is actually a good thing this time. It means we can let him ride on the baking soda for another week, just to be absolutely sure it is safe for him. (When I go to work, we don’t start food trials until I will be home for a few days. Less risky that way.)

In other Zac news, our TEFRA application is being processed as we speak! The unfortunate, terrible, rotten incomptent and thieving American Airlines debacle meant that filing our taxes for 2014 was delayed (due to missing tax paperwork), but we finally managed to get the taxes off to our accountant last week.

I’m anxiously awaiting their return, for two reasons: 1. we should get a NICE refund and 2. TEFRA requires the first two pages of the 1040 to complete the application!

As soon as I have those taxes in my hands, I’ll be faxing those forms over to TEFRA and, God-willing, Zac will be approved.

Once approved, speech therapy can resume at limited cost to us. Whew!

Speaking of speech, Zac is just a chatty little jay bird these days. Every day he seems to take leaps and bounds in his ability to say what he wants.

Oh, don’t get me wrong; he’s still speaking at about the level an 18-24 month old would speak. Maybe even younger.

But it is SO much more than he ever has, and we couldn’t be happier with the progress.

Nowadays, when he wants something and points and grunts, when we figure out what he wants we explain to him what he should say to get it.

Every single time, now, he at least attempts to repeat what we tell him!

It’s not always clear; “soup” and “shoe” sound disturbingly similar, as do other words for him, which makes for some confusion at times!

But he walks around babbling, tries to tell us stories, gets SUPER excited when we can communicate via words, and – get this! – two days ago, said his first ever 3 syllable word!

BLUEBERRY.

It. Is. Adorable.

And it helped us decide what our next food trial will be!

Hey – a food trial that might result in a safe, nutritious food for him, while also encouraging him to use words to ask for what he wants sounds like a win-win to me.

(Now I just have to think of ways I can feed him blueberries for two weeks straight without driving him crazy. Any ideas?)

All in all, Zac is doing extremely well as a newly minted 3 year old.

I’m thrilled with the personality I’m seeing finally able to come to light with his new vocabulary, proud of the sweet little boy he is, relieved at his physical growth and speech development, and more in love than ever with my adorable Snuggle Bear.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ZAC!

Aren’t 4 Year Olds Supposed to Have a Bedtime?

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Aren't 4 Year Olds Supposed to Have a Bedtime CradleRockingMama.com

One thing that is NOT awesome about all this “engaging with the world” activity is the complete decimation of bedtime.

My boys both stopped napping during the day between age 2 and 3. No amount of effort could make them nap, and believe me, I tried!

To ensure they get enough sleep, we have an alarm that goes off every night at 7:00 p.m. We call it the “bedtime alarm”. When the alarm sounds, Jed shouts “Bedtime alarm!” and the boys go straight to the bath.

After the bath, they go straight to bed, where they are asleep between 7:30 and 8:00 p.m.

Since every morning they wake up at 6:30 to 7:00 a.m. regardless of what time they go to sleep, this makes certain they’re getting at least 11 hours straight per night.

Shortly before tee ball started, Darrel and I had a discussion where we decided that our boys weren’t getting quite  enough sleep, and pushed the bedtime alarm back to 6:45 p.m. We thought a gradual dropping of bath time wouldn’t be as noticeable for the boys, and eventually, we’d have it at 6:30 p.m. with a bedtime of 7:00 to 7:30 p.m., ensuring a nice 12 hour stretch of sleep per night.

And then tee ball.

While tee ball was a wonderful experience, all of the games started at either 6:00 or 7:00 p.m. Since they each lasted an hour, you can imagine that bedtime was trashed.

Some nights, the kids weren’t falling asleep until 10:00 p.m.! After the games ended at 8:00 p.m., we wouldn’t get home until about 8:45 p.m., and then the kids were HUNGRY (even if they ate right before the game).

No matter how fast I am in the kitchen, there’s no way to have food on the table in less than 20 minutes when you make everything from scratch.

Even re-heating leftovers takes more time when two or three separate meals need to be warmed up.

On tee ball nights, there was no way to skip bath time, either. Even at breakneck speed, that takes at least ten minutes for us.

Overall, while I loved tee ball and will do it again next year, I’m not thrilled with the bed time situation.

For over a month, my kiddos earned LOTS of red and white chips. When my kids get tired, they get downright cranky and argumentative. Lack of sleep makes them lose what little self-control kids their age have.

We had more temper tantrums, more fighting, more whining, more time-outs (for both me and the boys!) and more general behavior issues in that time than we had for a long time before that.

Worse, both kids started to fall asleep in the car within minutes. That mades short car rides absolute agony, as neither boy wakes up well from short naps.

After a 10-15 minute nap, both boys wake up in the mood to hate the world. They cry. They whine. They refuse to move. They are NOT HAPPY and they make sure everyone around them knows it!

I’m really just baffled by the whole bedtime thing, actually. Looking around for activities to get the kids involved in, I see so many are evening activities.

While I understand those things are scheduled to accommodate working parents, I’m just left wondering “But what about the children?”

Don’t 3, 4, and 5 year old kids need a bed time?

It brings back memories of my single, “I can operate on my personal circadian rhythm” days when I would go grocery shopping at my “feels normal for me” night-owl times of 1:00 a.m. Even at that hour of the day (night?) I would see small children running around the grocery store.

I always wondered why those little kids weren’t in bed.

Being in Houston, where a lot of the jobs are shift work, I decided that maybe their families kept the same schedule as their shift-working parents, so probably 1:00 a.m. was the equivalent of 1:00 P.m. for their family.

Now, I’m not so sure. It seems like there is a great lack of respect for the sleep needs of small children running around in our country. 

Just as I speculated that a lot of kids are prescribed drugs because of unknown food issues, I now wonder how many kids are considered “problem children” for behavior caused simply by not getting enough sleep!

I don’t know about you, but I’m not a pleasant person to be around when I’m bone tired. Why would we expect our children to be any different?

Well, since most of the world has two working parents (or single parents who work two jobs), I know evening activities for kids will continue to be a phenomenon of our time.

We’re all sort of between a rock and a hard place on this one. We want our kids to get enough sleep, but we want them to participate in fun things like tee ball and other groups and activities.

I can’t make any judgements about what other parents do for their kids, but for our part, I’m going to try very hard to strictly avoid activities in the evenings (other than tee ball, which only lasts 6 weeks).

(This also fits right in with one of my tips on making full time work manageable with food allergies, conveniently enough!)

My kids may miss out on some fun things they could be doing at that hour, but I’d rather not miss out on having pleasant, joyful, well-rested children.

For us, sleep is just too important to skip.

Have you noticed this “evening activity for young children” thing, too? How do you handle it? Do you have any great tips for making kids nap?

A Little Lift

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A Little Lift CradleRockingMama.com

Nine days ago we started a baking soda trial for Zac.

It’s the easiest food trial we have had, in regards to “how will we get him to eat it”. Simple! Just add 1 tsp. to every baked recipe he’s got!

Let me tell you, baking soda is just magic. I had convinced myself that his baked goods were perfectly fine without baking soda. And really, they are  perfectly fine without it.

They’re just so much better with it!

Zac is loving this new addition. I’m not even sure if he realizes he’s in the midst of a food trial, since, once it’s baked in, baking soda is invisible, but he’s scarfing down cakes, pancakes, muffins and cookies like they’re air!

He actually cried on Friday when I told him he’d already eaten all of his cake and I didn’t have more ready.

So far, so good. We had a VERY concerning moment last Thursday when it came to light that my Mom had fed Zac a dinner full of un-trialed ingredients by mistake, but so far he hasn’t shown much in the way of reactions.

He had a VERY rough nights sleep that Thursday night, waking every two hours or so all night long. Since then, he has also had very strange poops; it’s like his body is fighting constipation. Lots of layered output, several straight up constipation poops, and just generally not 100% diapers.

It wasn’t a full-blown reaction, by any means, but it wasn’t baseline, either.

Fortunately, by Sunday his diapers were back to perfect. Whew!

My Mom was absolutely horrified that she had made the mistake she did. I’ll admit that while I was furious at first, I soon concluded that it’s the kind of mistake that anyone could have made. I was even part of the mistake, in a way. She had asked if she could cook carrots in with the roast for Zac, and I said “No. They’ll have to be cooked in a different pan.”

I know we are currently OUT of grass-fed roasts, so there is no way any roast she was making for Zac was safe, and it never occurred to me to ask her about what roast she was planning to make for him!

Just one more reason work is messing with my ability to take care of my kiddos. I’m too tired to think half the time.

Well, the baking soda trial continued, even through the “not-quite-normal” poops. He was absolutely perfect prior to the unfortunate dinner mishap, so we were hoping these small signs were just working the offending food out of his body, and not a reaction to the baking soda.

Right now we plan to take the 3 day break starting tomorrow and resume the trial on Friday. Hopefully by the end of next week, baking soda will be a safe and I can start enjoying fluffy foods, too!

In the meantime, there has been HUGE progress with Zac’s speech. His therapist assures me that any concerns about apraxia are moot. He’s mimicking!

For the last month or so, we can ask him to say a word and 90% of the time he will attempt to repeat it back to us.

Ever since that first 3 word sentence, he is now making new sentences as often as he can. The other day he wandered into the laundry room and came out to report “Mama! More poo poo meow meow!” Which, translated, means, “Mama! The kitties pooped in the litter!”

We’re getting lots of those obscure little sentences these days. My little boy is finally starting to talk. It’s thrilling!

Not so thrilling is the fact that we now are having to consciously work with him about his tendency to immediately begin screaming and crying when something makes him mad or frustrated.

Prior to having the ability to communicate with words, the only thing he COULD do when upset was to cry. Now, though, he has lots of “big boy words” (as his speech therapist calls them) to use when he needs to communicate.

For the most part, he tries to use words. Except for when he’s angry or frustrated.

Then he reverts.

When he does that I’ll tell him “Zac! Stop that now! You don’t have to cry – use your words to tell us what is wrong!”

Every time, you can actually see the comprehension dawn on him. “Oh, yeah. That’s right. I can ask for what I want!”

And every time, he uses his words and immediately gets a positive response. (He may not get what he wants, but at least he knows we KNOW what he wants and he gets an explanation for why we can’t or won’t do something.)

That is going to take some time. We’ve wanted to stop the immediate screaming/crying fits for a while, but we didn’t know what to tell him to do instead. He had no other means to communicate, really.

Now that he does, we just have to un-learn bad habits and train him to use his big boy words – even when angry.

We’ll get there.

Oh, and another sad sign that my sweet Zac is growing up? Sometime during the last week I was gone to work, he stopped saying “Mama”.

I’m “Mommy” now.

Why that makes me sad, I don’t really know. I just know it makes me very sad.

I liked being Mama.

He stopped saying “Dada” and now says “Daddy” for Darrel, too. I don’t know that it bothers Darrel as much as it bothers me, though.

All in all, Zac is doing pretty great at the moment. Now that warm weather is here, I hope and pray he will continue to do great for a long time.

What’s new with your kiddos? Did you also get sad when they stopped saying “Mama”?

Open Letter to the Thief at American Airlines

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An Open Letter to the Thief at American Airlines CradleRockingMama.com

Hello Mr. or Ms. Sticky Fingers,

Back on April 3, 2015, I flew home on your airline. When I landed, one of my bags was missing.

I don’t know if that was something you did, or if another of your co-workers was just incompetent. Either way, I was heartbroken.

See, in that bag, I had an external hard drive with ALL the photos and videos of my children from the last 3 years. Because I’ve been so busy taking care of those children, who have chronic health issues, I stupidly hadn’t backed up those precious memories anywhere else.

I cried. I mourned.

Then I reached acceptance, beat myself up emotionally a little for not having backed up my data, and moved on.

A week and a half ago, I received word that American Airlines had found my bag!

Elation! Joy! Happy dancing everywhere I went!

The bag arrived at my house while I was at work, and I couldn’t wait to get home to hug that hard drive.

Then I got to look in my bag.

Many of my belongings were there. I was happy to see them.

But do you know what was missing?

YOU know, of course. 

All my computer stuff. 

The little drawstring bag I stored them in was still closed up tight, but my external hard drive, flash drive, computer cable, and other cables were gone.

You went through my bag, opened the drawstring bag, and took my children’s childhoods away from me. 

I’m sure the idea you had is to erase everything off the hard drive and sell it for $20 or so.

With all the outsourcing, downsizing, and general jerkiness all airlines are putting their employees through lately, I can understand the desire to “get back” a little of what you ‘think’ you deserve.

We airline employees have been put through the wringer the last 14 years. I get it.

Oh, you didn’t know that, did you? I’m a fellow airline employee. (Hmm…I’m not sure how you missed it, since my work tools clearly labeled with my airline information were RIGHT NEXT to the drawstring bag you pilfered.) 

Guess you didn’t care that you were stealing from a co-worker.

Guess you didn’t care that you were “getting what you deserve” from someone who had nothing  to do with how your company has messed with you.

Guess you didn’t care about the Ten Commandments (wouldn’t your mother be proud?).

Guess you didn’t care about the LAW.

Guess you didn’t care about anyone but yourself.

If you had taken EVERYTHING in that bag – even the bag itself – but returned that hard drive to me, I would have been ecstatically thrilled. 

It was the only thing I truly cared about. 

Instead, in your heartless greed, you stole the irreplaceable, precious memories of my children’s childhoods. 

I should be kind, compassionate and understanding. I should extend the olive branch. I should offer forgiveness. I’m Christian, after all. That’s kind of what we do.

I hope you’ll forgive me for struggling with that right now.

Right now, I feel that genital herpes aren’t good enough for you. (Except someone as selfish and sociopathic as you would surely spread an STD to some unsuspecting innocent, and I can’t be a part of that.)

I’d like your car to be stolen. (Except then insurance would likely have to pay you, and even then, you might just steal someone else’s car to replace your own, and I can’t be part of that.)

I’d like a large bag you’re stealing from in the future to fall on you and break an obscure bone that will never heal correctly and cause you a lifetime of pain. (Except that workmans comp and disability will pay you money, and I don’t want you to get off easy.)

I’d like you to go to prison. (Except in the big house, you’d probably only learn better ways to be a criminal, and I certainly don’t want someone with your obvious cruelty to get “trained up” to be more dangerous.)

Hmm. Well. Since I can’t come up with a punishment great enough or appropriate enough for you that doesn’t backfire in some way, I guess I just have to suck it up and deal with my loss.

The truth is, though, that I don’t have to wish you any ill will or sully my spirit harboring anger and hate towards you. Whether my brain can envision it or not, you WILL get punished for this somehow. 

I could say “karma will get you”, but that’s not really a Christian concept.

No, Christians believe that you reap what you sow.

You obviously sow seeds of discord and sin with your life.

You get to reap that. Your life must be hell on earth, and that’s exactly what you deserve.

You could repent; feel actual  remorse for the bad choices you’ve made and the pain and heartache that you’ve caused, and be reborn.

I hope you do that. 

It won’t return my children’s memories to me, but it would make it less painful to bear, for me, knowing you’ve been saved and turned your life around to be an agent of God in this world.

Whether you do or don’t, though, the fact remains that while you stole some precious memories from me, I still have the two most amazing, kind, sweet, loving children in the world to savor raising.

This event will be a great teaching tool to my boys about theft, right and wrong, and forgiveness. They’ll never be the kind of person you are now, and they outnumber you two-to-one.

I’m pretty happy with that.

You know, writing this letter to you has helped me work through some of my hurt. Forget all the stuff I said about herpes and stolen cars.

I guess I CAN offer you forgiveness.

To forgive doesn’t mean to forget, though. From now on, every single thing I pack in my suitcases will be labeled prominently with my name and contact information, like a kid going away to their first sleep-away camp.

It probably is a lot harder to hock something labeled so clearly. 

And I will still watch my bags being loaded and unloaded on the plane as often as I am able.

But if I don’t forgive you, that will leave a mark on my soul that will help poison my life. That is something I cannot  allow you to do to me. 

So, you heartless, cruel, sticky-fingered jerk: you’re forgiven. 

You’re not worth hating. 

I’m too busy loving my family and making more memories (saved in at least 3 locations). 

Now get yourself to church and learn what God’s forgiveness feels like. 

And stop stealing!

With Love,
With Regard,
With Friendship,
God’s Peace be With You,

Your Victim