In part three of my rant I am going to go off on a world that I am actually involved in- ministry.

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Ok, so while my parents were in town, we looked at some model homes that we might be interested in purchasing. We are quite a while away from buying a house but we're weird and we think that walking through model homes is fun.

Let me explain a little about where I live. I live in a community with over 5,500 homes. It's kind of like one gigantic neighborhood with lots of little gated neighborhoods inside it. There are several different kinds of pools, 2 elementary schools, an area of shops and pizza places in the middle and lots of playgrounds. It's pretty much heaven on earth. We live in one little neighborhood and the model homes we looked at were in another area a bit closer to the elementary school the boys go to and closer to the shops.

While we were looking at some of the model homes, one sales lady was particularly pushy. She was informing me of how elite the area was, how there were only 3 lots left (all on the same street) for me to build on and if I put $10,000 down today, I could reserve one of those lots and begin the process. I thought, oh sure lady, let me just get out my check book. Anyway I did LOVE the homes. They are more of a dream home kind of thing than an ever really gonna happen kind of thing.

Cut to this weekend when I was out to dinner with a friend who is a real estate agent in the neighborhood.  She informed me that on that particular street where this lady was REALLY pushing me to buy, there lived a registered sex offender. Now, to be fair, the story on this guy goes a little something like this, apparently, at first, he completely confessed to child porn charges (all pictures involved little boys). Later, after convicted, he said that he was just protecting his son. I guess it was really the son that did it. The dad served three years in prison and now owns a half a million dollar house on this street (with a park on it) (within walking distance to the elementary school where my children attend). I thought people who were convicted of such things were not legally allowed to live so close to playgrounds and elementary schools. But, I don't know all the details about that kind of stuff.

I'm not too worried about my children's safety where we live now. My kids are never outside by themselves and their schools are super strict about who comes in and goes out of the building. Either my husband or I take our kids to their classrooms in the morning and are waiting outside the doors in the afternoon. Plus, as I mentioned in a previous post, I pray over my kids every night that nothing shall by any means harm them. I believe that God is big enough to protect them. That being said, I would NEVER buy a house on that street knowing what I now know. Not even if they gave me the home for free.

Here's what ticked me off about the whole thing. This lady was really trying her best to get me to build a house on that street ASAP. She never once mentioned that this person was living there. She called me yesterday to tell me that they were having some kind of special something or other going on this weekend. I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt, thinking that she surely must not have known about this man living there. Here's what she said to me, "Well, some of the other home owners have let me know about the situation. I'm not legally allowed to disclose this kind of information to anyone so, the less I know about it the better." I quickly let her know that for several reasons, she could take us off her prospective buyers list (I'm not ready to buy a half a million dollar home yet anyway). After we got off the phone, all I could think about was her words to me, "the less I know about it the better."  I understand that her job is to sell homes. But if it were me, I could NEVER sell a house to a family on that street. Never. Even if it meant I lost my job. There is no amount of money worth risking the safety of children- anyones children. I cannot believe these people.

I heard someone say, "whatever this guy has done, he's served his time, lets give him a break." Well, I disagree completely. This is not like he stole a car, served his time and now knows that stealing is not worth serving time in jail. It's not just a mistake. People who do things like this have severe psychological issues and need therapy for a long, long time. It's a much deeper issue than bad judgement.  Also, serving time usually makes things like this worse, not better. I do believe in forgiveness and recovery, but I also think you have to be wise about these things and buying a house on a street with this guy with my 3 little boys (and one on the way) is just foolish. 

 I could go on and on (as you can see) about this issue but, I won't. I'm not buying a house by this guy (whether he did it or not) and I'm going to keep a closer eye on my kids all the time.
 

I've got sot some things on my mind. So, for the rest of the week, I'm gonna air them out. Some of them might make you think twice before you nominate me for another "nice" award. But today, I'll start with something a little bit more mild.

So, I went shopping with my mom for some maternity clothes. When you do your first shopping of the pregnancy, they give you a little "gift bag." I came home with my clothes and my gift bag. I wasn't in a big hurry to open them up because I'm not quite ready for the clothes yet.

Finally, I take the clothes out of the bag. The gift bag came falling out. It had a big lump in it and I was pretty excited to see what was in this bag. I open it up to find...a baby bottle. Ok, toss that aside, surely there must be something for nursing moms in here. Babies R Us guide, Fischer Price baby gear guide, coupons for Disney books & clocks with the kids names on them, and that's it. Nothing for nursing moms at all. Now, I realize that they only give away things that companies give to them. So, if a company doesn't give them nursing products to give away, then they don't have it to give. But still, I was disappointed. I mean, a good portion of the nursing things that I buy come from that store, purely out of convenience. Let me tell you something maternity store, after I have this baby, I'll still be shopping for things that can be bought in your store, mothers who bottle feed, will not. Where's the love? Nothing. I don't want much, a disposable nursing pad or two. Something. Throw me a bone here!

Anyway, I know this is small, but it kind of ticked me off.

Steph has been posting about Jenny McCarthy's appearances on Oprah and 20/20. I saw the 20/20 episode. Then, the next day, I got my people magazine out of the mailbox, and there she was again, on the cover. It got me thinking about how so many people have issues today with their children. Either allergies, ADD, ADHD, asthma, and the list goes on. As I was thinking about this, I started thanking the Lord that my children have none of these issues. My littlest seems to have a small allergy to cows milk, but even that seems to be fading. Then I thought of the prayer that we say over our boys every night and I thought that I just had to share it with you.

Like the prayer we say over them before they go to school, we got this from various verses from the Bible. It started as something that my mother in law prayed over my husband and his brothers to help them get along better. We have added some to help my kids deal with sharing, nightmares,and other things. Feel free to insert your children's names where mine are to pray this over your children too.