Weight loss update #2

I thought about adding this in a comment on my last update, but I figure what would it hurt to have a fresh post!

I have gone down another pound! Which doesn't seem like much, but I will say I've lost several inches! I haven't actually kept up with it but honestly going from a juniors size 13 down to a size 9 is absolutely wonderful for me! I am happier, I feel better, and I'm looking in the mirror and thinking, wow you are starting to look great Dorothy! I'm feeling more confident about myself, about my abilities, about the dreams I've been wanting to accomplish! I know that if I can accomplish my weight loss goals, then I can accomplish all my other goals as well! I am on my way to becoming a happier, healthier, more confident me! And that is the best part of all!
And you can do it too! I'll tell you, besides my regular workout routine, I add two more routines into it. They are on youtube.com and total about an hour of a workout! Here  a couple of routines if you are interested in getting a great workout that doesn't really feel like a workout!


1.) Hip hop tabata workout! Keaira LaShae

2.) Reggae Dancehall workout also by Keaira LaShae

Her page is Superherofitnesstv

I use both of these plus my regular workout routine I mentioned in my previous blog, and eating healthy! All this has helped me lose weight! So from 165lbs to 158lbs, and down from a 13 to a 9! That's awesome  right!

Society's Judgmental views on Parents Disciplining their own Children

I wrote this article back in May of 2008 when I had only 4 kids! LOL I posted it on Helium.com and it stayed at number 1 in it's category until April 2012 where someone submitted a new article! I am very proud that this article had stayed at Number 1 for so long! It means that I got through to people, it means that my words rang true for many parents out there! It has had over 3 million views. As always please feel free to give me feedback! It is always appreciated! 

When it comes to disciplining our children society has had a say in it for quite some time. Being a mother of 6 children I should know. Now a days there are more laws banning and or restricting parents from disciplining their children then there are laws for stealing.
California passed a law about 6 years ago that states that parents do not have the right to discipline any child under the age of 6 years. They are not allowed to hit their child's hand for touching something in a store that may break and cause their child to hurt themselves or someone else, the parent is not allowed to even look like they are going to discipline their child or the parent can end up spending a year in jail,and after they are let out they are only allowed supervised visits with their children. Meanwhile, the child gets forcibly ripped away from the only parents they have ever known and thrown into the foster care system. Where there, they'll be lucky to find a family that will care more about them, then they do about the money. I know I was raised in the foster care system of California, but that is another story all together. I wasn't there because of my behavior I can tell you that. But I digress.
All this happened because a child was smacked on the hand for touching something breakable. Yeah, a lifetime of trauma for the parent and child versus a small sting of the hand that may last 5 minutes at most and a lesson that may last 20 minutes!
So if you have a child 6 years old or younger you are not allowed to discipline him/her. I say it's a load of b.s.. How does a parent expect to keep a child under control without a little discipline? Uh, yeah you don't. How does a parent expect to keep a child out of jail without some form of discipline. Again I say, Um....you don't. I have seen first hand what happens to a child that has no form of discipline. I dated a guy for 2 years that most people would consider a "mama's boy". His mother allowed him to do whatever he wanted to do all his life, no discipline for hime because he has ADD and Bi-polar disorder, so she let him get away with everything, plus he was the youngest as well. See where I'm goin with this? Yes he had some psychological issues, but if anything this meant he needed order, structure, and discipline, not a lack of all of the above. Now this man is 30 years old, no job, addicted to drugs, been to state prison for 8 years, and since he's been out (around 2 years now) he has been back in jail at least 5 times. All the other children in the family are thriving, full time jobs, with steady history, because they had the discipline that the youngest didn't.

When I was a child, I was taught to say "yes ma'am, no ma'am, yes sir, no sir, please, thank you" etc. (by the people that adopted me before I was taken away for sexual abuse) If I didn't the result would be a smack to the face or butt. Now if I did something wrong that I knew was wrong then I was whooped for it. My mother or father took a belt and spanked my butt until it hurt for me to sit down. I was whooped on several occasions and here I am alive and well still able to tell about those whooping's.
Now I know that there is talk about "other ways" to discipline your kids, but reality folks it works about 15-20% of the time. I know because I've tried them I've tried the "Johnny please don't do that, no Johnny stop, I said stop Johnny, Johnny please stop screaming, No johnny don't climb on that, No johnny, don't touch that, it can hurt you, Please stop screaming Johnny, mommy is just trying ot make you safe". This doesn't work, you are constantly talking and telling him to stop, instead of making him stop. He is a 21 month old child. You can talk to your child and tell them the thing's that are right and the things that are wrong. I mean seriously you can talk and talk until you are blue in the face and unless your child has the attention span that you do your child heard about 15 to 30 seconds of what you said. Most kids learn by showing.  I show my kids everyday. I get up make my bed, clean my room, brush my teeth, the start breaskfast. My kids get up, make their beds brush their teeth then eat breakfast.You show your child what will happen if he or she steals from a store then your child is less likely to do so. My son who was 3 years old at the time, was caught stealing some gum from the store. He had already asked if he could have it and I said no, so he decided to steal it. I saw him, and after I finished paying for our things I made him go talk to the manager of the store. I told him to give the gum back to the manager and apologize. I asked the manager to explain what would happen if he stole again. The manager did, he had the secruity person, which looked like a cop to my son, come over and explain that they would have to take him to jail if he did it again. My son hasn't stolen since. If you show your child what will happen if he or she has sex before they turn at least 25 then he or she is less likely to do so. With the birth of my 6th child my oldest was there. My only girl  (age 11) out of 6 children, I wanted her to know the experience of giving birth. She was able to ask all the questions she wanted, and watch as I gave birth to her little brother. She saw me in pain, she saw what I had to go through to bring her youngest brother into the world. So, now she knows the answer to how does the baby come out. She was shocked, but all in all she thought is was a very educational experience. She knows how a baby is made. She has also stated that she isn't going to be making a baby anytime soon. Which is probably good at least until she discovers boys, then I will figure out another way to reinforce the consequences of sex. I have no doubt that my children will probably have sex before they graduate high school, which is sad, but I will make sure they know the consequences of having unprotected sex. I never sugar coat things with my children. I answer them honestly.
I believe that the key to most successful parenting is honesty, and the fact that your child fears. Fears not you but the consequences of his or her wrong doing. You need to teach your child to fear what may happen if he or she does something that they know to be wrong.
Now I know that this may not always happen the way you may want it to. But for the most part if your child fears what will happen then they won't do the wrong thing more then once!
Disciplining your child is easier said then done. Back in the 50's and 60's parents beat the crap out of their kids and their kids lived to see another day. Now parents don't do a darn thing to their kids, because we the parents are afraid.
Just what are you going to do? Wait until you have to call the police on your child because he or she came after you with a baseball bat or worse a gun? And then what are you going to tell the officer when they look at you like your crazy? Because they will look at you like your crazy. Are you going to say "oh I'm terribly sorry officer, I couldn't do anything to control him/her because of the laws prohibiting parents ability to properly discipline their children so that this won't happen" How in the world are you supposed to keep your child from becoming a career criminal if you don't discipline them and start at a young age?
Now a days kids use the law to get out of trouble with their parents. I am sorry but that is just the most ridiculous thing that I have ever heard. My 6 year old daughter told my 4 year old son that if mommy or daddy doesn't give you what you want we can call the cops because that is child abuse. Yes my 6 year old said that! Let me emphasize that. she is 6 YEARS OLD! So I sat down and explained to my 6 year old the benefit of her calling the cops if she didn't "get what she wanted". I told her that she could call the cops, and the cops would come and take her away her brothers away, and even her new baby brother away, they would take mommy and daddy to jail, and she would go to one home while her brothers would go to a different home and the baby would go some place else, and they probably wouldn't be able to see each other for a long time. My 6 year old started crying saying that she didn't want to go anywhere. Now I know this may sound cruel to some of you reading this, but sometimes you have to be cruel to get a child to understand the consequences of their actions.
I am so sick of society trying to dictate to us what is the proper way to discipline OUR children. Next thing you know the government is going to be installing hidden cameras into our homes to make sure we don't hit our children. It's not just disciplining our children in public that is the concern here. You as a parent are responsible for your child's actions. You know what your child is going to attempt to do, as a young child or even as a teenager, because hello you were once their age too. You should discipline your child the way your parents did. Whoop your child or spank may be a better term for some people, for the things that you were whooped for. And use other forms of discipline such as time out (which I can tell you from experience does not work) or maybe even take something that your child loves to play with or do away from them. This method usually works on younger children not teenagers. Me, myself, I whoop my kids. It didn't kill me and it will not kill my children. My children go out into public and my 2 year old doesn't touch a thing in the store. They all stand next to the cart and hold onto a part of it. They can talk and ask for things but they know that if their father or I say no that is what we mean. Now at home they are a totally different story! They don't listen, and they scream and fight all the time. But they still get the same form of discipline I received when I was a child, only I and their father aren't as severe as our parents were.
There is nothing wrong with spanking your child as long as it is done as a form of lesson out of love and not in a fit of anger. In public society has come to restrict what parents can and cannot do to their children. And what happens to society. They blame the parents because some kid shot 45 people at a school in a fit of rage. They blame the parent because your child stole something and ended up in jail. THEY BLAME THE PARENT. What can the parent do about it? Not a thing. If you ask me it is the parents fault but it starts with society. The U.S. has to build more jails to be able to house all the criminals. It is my opinion that if parents were allowed to whoop/spank their children there wouldn't be as many criminals. Kids now a days do not respect their parents. Why? If you ask me I'd say it's because they don't fear their parents. When I was growing up kids feared their parents, and not so much their parents but what would happen to them if they got caught by their parents for doing something they knew to be wrong. Kids feared and respected their parents and the law, and there were far less criminals then, then there are now. Why because of the discipline they had back then, and the lack of it now.

Update on my attack

Just an update.

     The man that attacked me has been charged with Aggravated Robbery. His sentence hasn't been given yet, so when I know more I will post. He will be in a wheel chair paralyzed from the waist down as a result of my running him over.

That being said, I want everyone to know that my family and I are doing a little better now. My two children are still waking up during naps and in the middle of the night screaming from bad dreams. I wish that there was something more that I could do for them, but when they are as young as they are, it's hard to help them. I wish that this hadn't happened to them, that they could have went through their whole lives not having to know this kind of fear. The kind that wakes you up in the middle of the night screaming and scared that something bad is going to happen. I wish I could have kept them safe from that. My 5 year old is wetting the bed pretty often now, even though he hasn't done that since he was 2. And my 2 year old is back wanting a bottle, and his stuffed monkey, and crawling into bed with me late at night after waking up screaming.

I still have anxiety while driving my van. I keep looking in my rearview mirror hoping that I am alone, even when I know I am. Even after I check my van thoroughly, inside, and under and I know I am all alone, I hear his voice and see him in my van still. My heart still races every time I go to Kroger's and drive down the street I drove down when it happened. I break out in a panic when my children get close to people I don't know. I am constantly looking over my shoulder to see if anyone is following me. I truly dread that I even have to drive the damn thing at all. But I do my best to breathe through it. I wish I could just go out and buy another van, but I can't afford it at all. I wish I could just get a different vehicle, but with 6 children, school coming up, and only one parent working, (even though I've tried to find work, even babysitting, I havn't found anything, no matter the amount of contacts I've made, or how many times I've submitted my resume to various employers for positions I know I'm qualified for) it doesn't make it easy to just go out and buy another vehicle.  I hate being in the same car that I was attacked in. I hate that my children have to be in the van where they are reminded about a man being in the van. It puts a major thorn in my spirit, and increases my stress level a whole lot.

I stress when I go to bed, I get up to check the locks on the doors at least 5 times before I am finally able to go to sleep. I get up in the middle of the night to recheck them. My husband has told me that I have been fighting in my sleep again. Something I haven't done in years. I wake up in a sweat most nights, heart racing, terrified that someone has gotten in the house. I jump at any sound in my car when I don't have my kids with me, I don't even turn the radio on anymore.

I find that I think back over that day a lot. I think of how I could have done things differentlly. I think about if I did this, or if I did that differently, what would have happened. Then I have to shake my head and tell myself that everything turned out okay, my children weren't physically harmed, they are alive, though traumatized, and they smile and laugh still.

I am continuously trying to find ways to ensure that people are aware that things like this can happen to them. I want to help people. I thought about trying to find an organization that allows people to travel and tell their story. I haven't found one yet. That requires driving to meet people and I dont like getting near my van at all. I wish I could just take the damn thing to a chop shop and have it destroyed, but I know it's not practical, plus knowing my luck they will charge me to take it. And anyways we only have the van that will fit everyone in it. Actually we only have the van, because my husbands truck is a company vehicle! So I'm stuck with the stupid thing! Oh joy! I count my blessings everyday. And I AM truly blessed. I would be even more blessed if I could get a new vehicle and get rid of the reminder of the attack. That would be one of the greatest blessings of all!

Hijacking not the worst I've suffered in my life, & telling my story could be offensive.

There is a strong possibility that if I told my whole story, that there would be quite a few people that were offended by it. By the language used, by scenes of my childhood depicted. But there is also a chance that it may be able to help someone going through something similar, that they aren't alone. That it's possible to be "normal" after having endured such things. Abuse is abuse, no matter how you try and paint it in a different light, you still see abuse. No matter the setting, the person, or the situation, abuse is still abuse. There are different types of abuse, Verbal, physical, sexual, all which in turn cause emotional damage, and are forms of emotional abuse. I've suffered them all. And I am still alive, strong and able. I can tell my story and not worry about the few that may be offended, or I can sit back silently like I have for years, wondering if in fact I was to tell my whole story if I could have helped someone. It's a hard decision to share details of your life so intimate that they could ultimately destroy you, and maybe even those you love. And there are risks involved. Things that could be told that may hurt someone else, maybe even someone I love deeply or dearly, inadvertently. I find myself asking these questions. Am I willing to take the risks? Does my husband love me enough to endure the possibility of criticism that may come from telling my story? Would my children be embarrassed by the things that I have gone through being public knowledge? Would I be able to help even 1 person by telling my story? Would it be beneficial to the people who go through the same things, or similar things to know that they aren't alone? Do the benefits of helping, out way the risks to my family?
I think if I was alone, single without children, I wouldn't worry about the risks, because I would be taking them alone, like every bad thing that ever happened to me, I would deal with it alone. But now that I have 6 children, and a common law husband, so the risks have to be accessed. They have to be analyzed. They have to be weighed. It's a hard decision, to contemplate the outcome based on the few who may be hurt or embarrassed, with the benefit of possibly helping many who are suffering similar fates. Not a decision to be taken lightly. Something I will have to think with my mind, heart, and soul. Because it would be a life changing experience, for everyone involved.
~Dorothy Baker