Today was the first day of school for my 2 middle children. My husband was occupied with caring for the baby and taking our oldest son to his first homeschool activity. So I was on pre-k and K opening day duty. At their school, the first day involves a theme and several “play centers” for the children to enjoy. Most children have at least one parent or grandparent with them for the big day. Since Mark was otherwise occupied, I took both children to their first day, and I popped back and forth between their two school rooms so I was theoretically with both of them.

The theme in both classrooms was “A Visit to the Farm.” (The irony of this theme is that at least 50% of these children actually live on farms and the other 48% have family within 5 miles of their homes who have farms.) Back on topic . . . One of the activity centers for both classes involved the children making their own little grass pastures. Each child was given a square tray in which to put their pasture. They poured dirt in the tray, added some seed, covered the seed with more dirt, added water, a plastic farm animal, and popsicle stick halves for the fence. This was a fun and popular activity for the kids.

At the end of class, the children were to carefully carry their pastures out to their cars to go home. When I went to pick up Nevin, I found he had put his pasture in his backpack. Hmmmmm . . . fortunately, his teacher quickly told me they had secured their pastures in plastic bags. Phew! One catastrophe averted. So off we went to the car, with me carrying my camera (of course) and Evangeline’s backpack so her hands were free to carry her pasture. We got to the car, got in and headed off to the post office to check the mail.

After the post office errand was completed, we headed home. When we pulled up in front of the house, I said, “Evangeline, where’s your pasture?”

She said, it’s up there with you Mommy.”

“No,” I said, “It isn’t. Oh. I know where it is.”

“Where, Mommy, where?” she asked excitedly.”

“It’s on the ground in front of your school.”

You guessed it. I placed in on top of the car so I could get everyone safely buckled in, and I drove off, allowing the newly planted pasture to fly from my car.

Evangeline said, “You did that on purpose!” (She was reprimanded for this little attitude issue.)

I assured her that it was a mistake and grownups make mistakes sometimes. She has forgiven me, but I am planning to ask her teacher for another tray and seeds so we can recreate her pasture.

I was wrong about the law in Oklahoma not being standardized. Apparently, the limit to how much sudafed one can possess is set in grams, and retailers set policies for how many boxes they sell at a time based on that information. Here is a quote I pulled from a DEA website:

House Bill 2316 passed both the Oklahoma House and Senate in May 2002 and went in to effect on July 1, 2002. This new law puts a 24 gram limit on all cold medicines containing pseudoephedrine or ephedrine. The charge carries a five year maximum sentence. If a retailer knowlingly distributes pseudoephedrine, ephedrine, or phenylpropanolamine with the knowledge that it will be used to manufacture methamphetamine, the sentence carries a maximum of ten years incarceration.

This information doesn’t change my feelings about the law. A person can still purchase more of the over-the-counter medication than the law allows by skirting the policies of retailers. I just wanted to correct my original blog with accurate information.

There are countless articles like this on the web. Missouri is not the only state that has passed laws regarding the purchase of all cold medications containing sudafed. Oklahoma has a real meth lab problem, so I understand the concern. However, the law really does little to help with the problem.

I began thinking about this after an early-morning trip to the grocery store today. I got up before the children today to go get groceries for the week ahead. It so happens that the whole family has colds, and we are nearly out of cold medicine. So I went to the cold medicine section of the store as soon as I got there to stock up on a few items. Now, I knew there was some restriction on how much sudafed I could buy, so I tried to restrain myself. I put one box of regular sudafed into my cart to use for our children. I put one box of generic alka-seltzer like cold medicine, as it is what my husband prefers for cold symptom relief. Finally, I chose one box of sudafed mixed with a pain reliever and another box of sudafed with pain reliever and an antihistamine for me as my symptoms sometimes vary. There you have it–middle class housewife attempts to purchase 4 boxes of cold medications, but she is stopped in her tracks by the clever checkout clerk! Store policy (in place because of state law) is that customers can only buy 3 products containing sudafed. The clerk stopped scanning items when her register gave her a notice of my attempt to go above the limit. She looked at the register tape, and promptly put one of my boxes of sudafed to the side. She didn’t even tell me what she was doing. So I asked her, “What’s the problem? Did I go over the limit on sudafed products?” She said, “Yes. You can only buy 3 at one time.” I said, “Can I at least look at the one you tossed aside to decide which one I would like to do without?” She handed me the box. It was the one I picked up for the kids. Then I said, “Is there anything to stop me from coming through the line again just to buy the one box of sudafed?” She said “No.” I said, “Well, then, the policy doesn’t do much good, does it?” So I paid for my groceries, went over to the pharmacy area, and picked up the sudafed I needed for the children, and paid at the pharmacy check-out.

Here’s my thought on this. This is a stupid law. Meth dealers who really want to buy their supplies from their local grocery store can go to the store with several of their buddies, and they can all buy the limit. Then they can go to another check-out stand and buy some more. Then they can go down the street and buy the limit at the local drug store. But I, a housewife and mother of 4 who has legitimate reasons for buying multiple packages of sudafed products, am forced to extend my trip to the grocery store by having to go through the checkout line a second time. It wasn’t that big of a hassle, but it still was irritating. If I hadn’t been paying attention to the clerk, she would have just trown my box to the side, I would have driven 14 miles home, and found that I didn’t have all the cold medicine I needed. Then I would have been really ticked.

Here’s the thing. It is like gun control laws. They don’t work because the only people who are really hurt by them are the law abiding citizens who get their guns from the gun dealers, filing proper papers, registering their guns as the law requires. Do criminals really get hampered from committing heinous crimes by the law requiring guns to be registered? No. Criminals get their guns by other means. They steal them. They buy them illegally on the streets. It is the same with meth makers and dealers. They get their supplies by going around the law–which as I proved–is really quite easy. In the meantime, law-abiding citizens like me get hassled at the grocery store for buying one extra box of cold medicine on the off chance that I might be a meth lab owner/dealer. The other crazy thing about it is that the rule is not standardized across the country. Some states allow customers to purchase only 2 boxes of sudafed, while others, allow customers to purchase 3 or 4. Another wrinkle in the law is that there seems to be no limit to the number of pills per box that are allowed. In other words, I can buy 3 boxes containing 8 sudaphed pills, or 3 boxes containing 24 sudaphed pills. How can laws like this really help to stop the production of methanphetamines? In reality, they can’t and they don’t. They just soothe the collective conscience of the lawmakers that they are “doing something” to put a stop to this crime. So while legislaters are patting themselves on the back for curbing the drug problem in America, I am having to spend more time in line at the grocery store and drug dealers and quite easily getting around this bogus law.

First, thanks to my husband for his kind birthday thoughts. And then, thanks to those of you who took the time to jump from his blog to mine to wish me a happy birthday.

I had a very nice day celebrating. My children gave me their gifts on Sunday, and Mark and I had a free babysitter (Thanks Ronda!) for all 4 children on Monday night so we could go out to dinner. It was enjoyable to have adult conversation and to not have to cut anyone else’s food or give a bottle to anyone. However, I will say that on this birthday when I am approaching 40, I am most thankful for the wonderful family God has given me. I am truly blessed, and I often forget my blessings and complain about the negatives in my life. My prayer for the next year of my life is that I will pay more attention to the positive things God has given me and push through the negatives. The first scripture that comes to mind is one I make my children say when they are grumpy–Phil. 2:14- “Do everything without grumbling or complaining.” (Verse 15 is actually pretty good to think on, too.) I often find that reading all of Philippians is a good way for me to have an attitude adjustment. Anyway, I digress . . . So if you ever think of praying for me, pray that I will “dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness.” (Ps 37:3)

It seems like summer is the time that everyone reads. For me, life’s routine doesn’t change that much, but I do seem to manage to read a bit more anyway. Visiting the library weekly with my children, I have managed to pick up a couple of recent releases. The Midwife’s Tale and The Dogs of Babel are two that I have enjoyed. I finished The Midwife’s Tale a couple of weeks ago. It is well-written in a Cold Sassy Tree sort of way. But there were parts of it that were disturbing. I am in the last chapter of The Dogs of Babel. The style of this book’s writing definitely draws the reader in. It is personable, inviting. Interestingly, the book is in first person with a male character telling the tale, and the author is a woman. I haven’t read a book written this way since I finished My Antonia by Willa Cather 2 years ago. The other interesting note about The Dogs of Babel is actually written by someone who went to college for writing. That is pretty unusual in today’s market with the “everyone’s a writer” mentality that seems to prevail. Both books are short, perfect for summer reading. I hope to write more complete thoughts about them individually later on, but for now, I’ll just recommend adding them to your beach reading list.

I haven’t looked at many blogs lately, so perhaps this news is on someone else’s blog that I missed. I came across it this morning on an e-mail from Leadership Journal. In the midst of all the celebrities who have died in the last week, it seems none of the popular media has reported on the passing of Larry Burkett, something of a Christian celebrity. So it seemed worth mentioning here.

Larry Burkett gave financial advice that was conservative and helpful to many. I haven’t always followed his advice, but I appreciated his ministry. I was also always aware of him, since as a single woman working for a Christian TV ministry in the late 80s, co-workers and people I was in contact with for work-related things always asked if I was related to him. My maiden name is Burkett, but we were not related.

I know. You thought every blog from now on was going to be something about our new baby. But, you were wrong. I am six + weeks postpartum now, so I can begin to think about other things. (But scroll down and see how cute she is if you haven’t already.)

Living in rural OK doesn’t provide a lot of opportunities for Mark and I to go out. I am not whining, really, I am not. It is just a point of fact. So to deal with the situation, we are beginning to plan for some more purposeful time together. We are going to have at-home book night dates from time to time. This will be like our own little mini book group. The first book we are reading is Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen. I have the advantage in that I have read it more than once before, and I have seen the movie countless times. However, already, he is seeing more “stuff” in it than I have ever seen. [Sometimes it is really irritating to have a smart husband ;)] Seriously though, I am about 10 chapters ahead of him, and he is pointing out things to me about the economic picture of England in the late 1700s that he is gathering by reading the book, and I am thinking, “I never thought of that before, but I can see why you would say that.”

I really think it is great that I have a husband who is willing to read Jane Austen in the first place. It is even greater that we can have coversations that don’t revolve around our kids (even though we have plenty that do). I am encouraged by this because 20 years from now when the kids are transitioning out of our home into homes of their own, we will still have things to talk about.

I have 5 older brothers. I think that girls with big brothers are blessed, and it is my prayer that my boys will love and care for their sisters for the rest of their lives. I plan to dig out these photos of the boys holding their baby sister to remind them how much they loved her from the beginning (I’ll show them the pictures of them holding their other sister, too.)

Our 4-year-old daughter loves shoes. This passion for footwear started early–shortly after she turned one. This photo demonstrates her need to bring up her little sister indocrinated to love shoes. She often says, as she did before this photo was taken, “Mommy, can we put shoes on the baby just to be pretty?” (I imagine some of you may notice that the shoe lover herself is not wearing any in the photo.)