The Land of Ozz

Is there such a phrase as “Too Premature”? If you ask some experts in the UK, then the answer is yes. A TimesOnline story reported back in November that the The Nuffield Council on Bioethics released a report titled Critical Care Decisions in Fetal and Neonatal Medicine that says:

..intensive care should not be given to babies born before 22 weeks, and that babies born between 22 and 23 weeks should not, in normal practice, be given intensive care unless parents make a specific request and doctors agree that treatment is possible and in the baby’s best interests.

If you ask Eddie and Sonja Taylor of Homestead, FL if there is such a thing as “Too Premature” then you would find that a new chapter needs to be written in this bioethics report. Their daughter Amillia was born in the fall at just under 22 weeks gestation. The exact gestation time is known because she was conceived via in vitro fertilization. Amillia was about the length of a standard ball point pen when she was born and weighed about 10 onces. You can see a picture of how small her little feet were on The Sydney Morning Herald. Now at four months of age Amillia is well over 4 pounds and will likely be going home from the hospital with little concern for her future health according to doctors at the Baptist Children’s Hospital in Miami.

God continues to show that he has a greater plan no matter what the experts say.

My good friend and guest blogger Robin sent me an email today asking for help. A young man that grew up with Robin’s children is in a tough spot and could use our prayers and any help that we might be able to muster out here in the blogsphere. This young man’s wife gave birth to their son about a month ago.

Robin told me that this couple’s son was born very premature and weighed 2 lbs. at birth a month ago. Obviously the baby’s lungs were not developed and as a result not enough oxygen could get to his extremities. The doctors recently had to amputate his fingers and feet to stop gangrene from killing him, and they give him a 5% chance of survival. The parents are being housed in a Ronald McDonald House in Columbia, SC. The parents are in their early twenties and have practically no support. They have lived with the mother’s family since they were married two years ago.

Both parents spend every possible second at the hospital, but the dad knows he has to support his family. He has a high school education and is trying to find work in t he Columbia, SC area. His employment history includes fast food restaurants only.

As many of you know, my wife and I have been through many months of hospitalization with our son Caden who continues to battle some pretty big health issues at 27 months old. It was the love, time, and gifts given from others who helped us get through some of the toughest times with Caden. My friend Robin was one of the biggest supports for our family when she moved into our home for several weeks to care for our older son Riley while Caden was still in intensive care after his first open heart surgery.

I am asking all visitors and bloggers to help this young family in any way you can. A restaurant or discount store gift card would be great. If you want to donate some money or gift cards to this family then I will tell you how you can send donations directly to them if you will contact me via email.

You can email me at:

No matter what the Lord puts on your heart concerning this story, please pray for this young couple and their son.

The most exciting news heard in the Osborne camp in years has been posted over on Caden’s Page. There’s way to much to repeat over here so you will just have to jump over to Caden’s Page to read Christmas Plus.
HINT: The biggest news to tell is illustrated in the picture of Caden found inline in the post once you get over there on Caden’s Page. The detailed explanation can be found in the post.

What are you doing for fun this Christmas season? I hope you are having as much fun as we are. Our family had a blast building this Gingerbread Train. I have posted some detailed pictures of the construction process on my Grill’n Time blog.

Our oldest son Riley had a blast with this project, but the construction was nowhere near as much fun as the consumption has been. At this point, we have given away two cars leaving only the engine and coal car. The engine and coal car look like they have been through a war zone.

This project has been a ton of fun. It has officially been adopted as a family tradition for us. We already have some cool ideas for new and improved ways to decorate the train next year.

Don’t forget to check out Caden’s Page to read about some of the other things going on with our family.

Update: You can see how our train turned out by visiting my Grill’n Time blog. There are a ton of pictures taken during the construction process.

There are a ton of creative things a family can do together especially during the holiday season. We get some really cool ideas from FamilyFun magazine. The picture below is a screen capture from their web site where you can go to see one of these great ideas.

Our entire family is involved in making this Gingerbread Train this week. It started out as a joint project between our family and some friends, but nearly every adult and child involved in the project has come down with some form of illness that as sidelined them from participation. My wife Sherry could barely talk due to a scratchy voice earlier today and Caden had stuff start draining out of his left ear earlier this week. Riley as well as our friends have also been under the weather with varying degrees of cold and flu type symptoms.All this illness left me a little more involved in the Gingerbread Train project than originally planned. That’s okay though because I was sad that this project was going down mostly during the day while I was at work. From the beginning I was assured to see the completed project since it was going to be one of the desserts for the last night of our current Preparation for Parenting class.

We have been taking pictures along the way. About half of the gingerbread dough was baked tonight. Sherry is planning to bake the rest of it Monday during the day so that it will be cooled off in time to assemble by the evening. Riley can’t wait to see the train assembled. That boy loves trains.

Our class meets on Tuesday night, so we should be done in plenty of time to have a nibble after class that evening. I will post some pictures when we are done. Sherry and the boys have been working on some other cool holiday treats that I may get to capture some pictures of and share here if I they last long enough for a photo.

There are a couple of great sales going on for the next couple of weeks. The first is a sale on Growing Families International (GFI) resources. This sale happens a couple of times each year and includes parenting materials authored by Gary and Anne Marie Ezzo. You can order videos, books, audio tapes, and workbooks directly from the GFI Store. Many of the resources are offered at a discount of 50% off the list price.

The second big sale going on is over at the Mom’s Notes web site. Mom’s Notes are a great supplemental teaching that further illustrates the Biblical foundations taught in Growing Kids God’s Way (GKGW). The Mom’s Notes web site offers many other publications that have been reviewed by the Links and their team of reviewers to ensure that the materials complement the character training offered in GKGW and the Mom’s Notes.

Joey and Carla Link are National Ministry Overseers for Growing Families International (GFI). The Links could be described as domestic missionaries. They have dedicated their lives to educating parents on the Biblical parenting principles taught through the GFI material. They speak at conferences, teach parenting classes, and counsel families in addition to publishing the Mom’s Notes. The Mom’s Notes web site contains more information about the Links and their ministry.

A great local resource for families in the Charleston, SC area is the GFI Charleston Community web site. This site offers class schedules for the Charleston area as well as a new online newsletter. The GFI Charleston Community site has links to other great online resources offered by the Ezzos and Growing Families International.

An update has been added to the bottom of this post.

Below is a portion of the latest post on Caden’s Page that I felt was worth sharing over here. AS background I will just say that my youngest son has seen his pediatrician five times in nine days plus two visits to the hospital for blood work, chest x-rays, and an antibiotic injection. On two separate occasions the doctors have come very close admitting him to the hospital with pneumonia. He is home and doing better.

Sherry and I have been standing firm. I shared the following scripture reference with a friend today in response to the question of how we were doing.

“Let him have all your worries and cares, for he is always thinking about you and watching everything that concerns you. Be careful–watch out for attacks from Satan…Stand firm when he attacks. Trust the Lord…To Him be all power over all things, forever and ever. Amen.” 1 Peter 5:7-11 (TLB)

There is no doubt that during our time on this earth we will never come to a full understanding of how our simple little human circumstances fit into God’s master plan for his kingdom. I realized today that it is very easy to get caught up in what seems to be very big problems. I have found myself caught up in the “oh what a big deal this is” feeling about our situation. As I went back to read and meditate on this passage from First Peter this evening, I realized that in my paraphrasing of this already paraphrased translation, I left out a part of this that really turned it into a much more self-centered reference than I realized. I left a very important part of verse nine out. The whole verse reads like this:

“Stand firm when he attacks. Trust the Lord; and remember that other Christians all around the world are going through these sufferings too.”

I realize the context of this passage is not talking about parents with sick kids, but I still believe it fits in our situation as well as some others.

I don’t have to look very far to see others suffering and you probably don’t either. I have friends and/or family members who are suffering in their own way: one who has been called to the bedside of a sister because the sister is not expected to live much longer, another who is going through a divorce with five young children at home, another with an unidentified lung disease, another with a Mom who is battling cancer, another whose father is up against a possible Parkinson’s diagnosis, two others who are suffering from flu and pneumonia, another who is battling hepatitis C, and another who has been laid off from a job.

These people I know very well and I have seen and/or spoke to most of them in the past week. All of these people have a common theme with me. The have all been worried about me and my family even though each has been going through as much if not worse than us. Their lives have shown to me this week that they have been standing firm, trusting the Lord, and letting him have all their worries and cares. What awesome testimonies I have been living in the middle of this week. What a wonderful lesson I have learned tonight.

“…Trust the Lord; and remember that other Christians all around the world are going through these sufferings too.”

UPDATE: I got up this morning to do my daily reading. I was still half asleep when thumbing through my Bible and landed on Colossians 3 instead of 2 Corinthians 3. It did not take long for me to realize that what I was reading did not quite fit with what I was reading in Corinthians over the past few days, but I did read enough to get a confirmation on my notes above. We do all need to avoid worry. I have moved away from believing in luck and coincidences even though I do still sue those terms from time to time. I landed on this scripture this morning as a confirmation that I should not worry about anything and neither should you. The following really hit home this morning.

Let heaven fill your thoughts; don’t spend your time worrying about things down here. Colossians 3:2 (TLB)

We played hooky from church last weekend in exchange for a lunch at the top of the highest point in the Carolinas. The picture on the right was taken a few hundred yards from the peak of Mt. Mitchell in North Carolina.We spent the entire day on Sunday driving the Blue Ridge Parkway and taking in God’s awesome creations. Our boys loved it up there. Can you tell from the pictures below? We may live near the coast of SC, but our hearts are in the mountains. This was the first trip to the mountains for Caden and it was the first time for Riley since just before his first birthday.

We actually started out on Saturday and picked a few apples in Hendersonville, NC on the way up. Okay, it was actually Edneyville, but very few people have ever heard of it. I lived there for almost a year before joining the US Air Force back in 1986. We stopped by the apple house of an old family friend. They loaded us up with apples. My wife made about a bunch different fresh apple desserts for our Preparation for Parenting class that started this past Tuesday night. Everyone loved the homemade apple pie, turnovers, and cake that Sherry made not to mention the other appetizer things. I should have taken a picture for my Grill’n Time blog but the stuff didn’t last long enough to get a picture. Maybe next time.

Today is my blog-a-birthday or whatever you call it. I officially started blogging on Election Day 2004 over at Caden’s Page. It was the day my son Caden was born. I started with a static html page that I updated manually and then transferred via FTP. It took me a few months to learn what blogging really meant and that there was actually software to help streamline the process. I posted pictures with FTP as well. You can see the pictures from Caden’s birth week here.

Happy Birthday Caden!!!

Love,
Daddy

Side note: HOEI.COM was getting less than 100 visits per month before I started blogging. Now this site averages over 20,000 visitors per month.