And God Created Dispatchers

 

Colossians 4:6 Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how to answer each one. 

 The Dispatchers Bible verse. ;)

 

Every Sunday Morning as I head to work, I think about what it means to be a Dispatcher for a Police/Fire Department.  I am up at 4:30 and out the door in an hour.  No matter the weather, or often, how I feel, my family sleeps in and I go to work.  Sometimes I wish I had weekends off, so I could spend time with the family and I sure do wish I could go to church in Sunday mornings, but as I say, "Sallie Mae likes me paying back those school loans, so I must go." 

Dispatching is crazy at best.  I once heard a Lieutenant describe it to a new employee (who once again, didn't last) as "going 0 to 60 in just a matter of seconds!"  And that is a fact!  Sometimes we can literally be about to fall asleep.  Our radio room can get warm and quite comfy at times.  And with just one call, we may have an accident with injury, a domestic involving weapons, a housefire or a lady just wanting to speak to Animal Control.  Any number of scenerios happen everyday.  Yes, in our small town, we have homicides, suicides and fatalities.  Somehow, I am able to turn the switch off when bad things happen.  And yes, we develop a "weird" sense of humor.  But usually, it is a very busy, heart of the Police Department.  The center of a storm.

The most disturbing thing I've ever heard was a rape in progress.  She called 911 from a phone we were unable to track and the only clues we ever had was, 1) it was a boyfriend or someone she knew and loved. She told him she loved him, and she begged and pleaded... 2) they were on a dirt road or a gravel driveway.  I listened for a long, long time, to every last sick detail, trying to figure out where she was. I wanted so bad to help her!  She never talked to me.  We rewound the "tape" over and over again listening for clues but we were never able to help her.  And the rape, as far as we know, went like many other sexual assaults-unreported. 

The only other thing that ever really upsets me is when a child is involved.  I hate more than anything to have a little girl call 911 and tell me "Daddy is hitting Mommy" or most likely these days, "Mama's boyfriend is hitting her!"  I was that little girl when I was very small and I know what that's like and it's scary.  I wish every woman was as strong as my Mom and would leave the situtation.  But mostly, women don't leave; they just call back Monday asking how they can "drop charges." 

When it's been really bad, I just call my husband on his cell phone and all I have to say is, "Honey, it's bad.  It's real bad."  And he just stays on the line with me, never saying anything, only breathing, but thats enough to comfort me through the next several hours.  I have never had to leave a shift.

Being a Dispatcher is hard, but we do have an awful lot of fun.  Most the ladies I work with have very tight bonds and we do an awful lot of cutting up!  We laugh till the tears roll. Sometimes we get catty and we fight and get snippy, but we're a very tight unit.  And the Police Officers we work with are truly like our brothers.  We have their back and we tell em where to go-literally!  We sure don't make a lot of money at our job, but we're dedicated! 

A lady I work with, Miss Norma forwarded this e mail to me and I wanted to share it, cuz it truly brought me to tears first thing this morning (thanks alot Miss Norma)!

AND GOD CREATED DISPATCHERS

The angel walked in and found the Lord walking around in a small circle and muttering to himself. "What are you working on now lord?' he asked. "Well I finished creating a peace officer, now I'm working on a dispatcher"Since the angel could see nothing in the room, he asked God to tell him about it. "It's some what like the police officer model, it has 5 hands-one for answering the phone, two for typing, one for answering the radio, and one for grabbing a cup of coffee. The arms had to be placed fairly carefully since all the tasks a dispatcher does, have to be done simultaneously. The digestive system is a little complicated, since it runs on coffee, and food that can be delivered, but seldom needs to get up for the rest room. I made the skin tempered duralite covered with Teflon. A dispatchers hide has to be tough enough to withstand darts from cranky officers, jabs from citizens, and lack of attention by administration, but not show any signs of wear and tear. Unlike a police officer it only needs one pair of eyes, so that left extra room for the ears. There are five sets of ears, one set for the telephone, one for the main radio, two for the other radios it has to monitor, and one to hear everything else going on around it. They fit all right on the head, since it had to be extra large for the brain. The brain has to be enormous so it can remember a full set of 10 codes, phonetic alphabet, at least two hundred different voices, the entire contents of three different SOP manuals, two Teletype manuals, and an NCIC code book. Of course I left enough extra space for it to learn the individual quirks of every different SGT., LT., Shift commander, fire chief, and other supervisor, and the ability to keep them all straight. There also has to be room for it to learn which situations need an officer and which don't, and also the ability to determine in less than two minutes what to do for any given event. There is a built in condenser so it can take an hour long explanation, put it into 30 seconds worth of radio transmission, but still get the whole story across. Those switches on the front are for the emotions. It has to be able to talk to a mother who's child has just died without pain, a rape victim with empathy, a suicidal person with calmness and reassurance, and abusive drunk without getting angry. When one of the officers yells for help, it can't panic, and when someone doesn't make it, the dispatchers heart mustn't break. The little soft spot just to the left of the emotion switch is for abandoned animals, frightened children, and little old ladies who are lonely and just want to talk to someone for a few minutes. The dispatcher has to care very much for the officers and firefighters it serves, without getting personally involved with any of them, so I added another switch for that. Plus of course, the dispatcher can't have any of its own issues to worry about while it is on duty, so that last switch turns those off. The patience switch is turned up to high all the time on the CTO model, and I've added an extra fuse to those to those to handle the overload. A dispatcher has to be able to function efficiently under less than good physical conditions, and be flexible enough to withstand whatever whim the administration comes up with, while still retaining it's general shape and form. That warm fuzzy shoulder is, there for officers to use when they gripe, other dispatchers when they hurt, and for those who are shell shocked by a horrible call and just need someone to be there. The voice gave me a little trouble, it has to be clear and easy to understand, calm and even when everyone else is screaming, but still able to convey empathy and caring while remaining totally professional. It runs for a full 12 hours on very little sleep, requires almost no days off, and gets paid less than an executive secretary. "The dispatcher sounds wonderful lord", said the angel, "Where is this amazing creation?" "Well you see," answered the supreme being "Dispatchers are invisible unless they make a mistake. So it's practically impossible to tell when they are run down, worn out or in need of repair. Now that I've created them, I can't see the original model to make enough of them to go around.

Excuses

Excuses   

I hear lots of excuses when I talk to people about foster care.  Lots of people say they would like to foster, “But…”  I hear lots of “buts” and I myself have used lots of “Buts.”  Many times, we have logical reasons for being unable to foster and I know lots of people pour that energy in other area’s and ways to help.  And I appreciate those that support foster parents and foster kids, through prayer, donations, volunteering, etc….but I want to talk about one of the excuses that weighs heavy on my heart and my response to it.

Sometimes, people say they would like to help “these kids” but they don’t like all “these classes DHS makes you take.”  They don’t realize the true need for these classes.  They say, “I raised three kids, I know HOW to raise kids” or insert  x number of kids they raised and my response is this: “Yes, maybe you have raised three kids, but were your kids kicked in the head by your boyfriend?  Have they ever been so hungry, they ate garbage out of the dumpster?  Were you’re kids raped?  Molested by a family member?”  The classes DHS offers to prospective foster parents are designed to train you for these scenarios.  Kids in foster care are very similar to our “own” kids but they also have a completely different set of needs.  John needs a new backpack.  A foster kid may have be wearing the same pair of underwear every day for weeks; that child needs new underwear.  Sometimes, Addy thinks there’s a monster under her bed.  I’ve had foster children who have never had a bed.  And their monsters are Mama’s friends that come over at night time.  The classes and training DHS offer to prospective foster parents and for continuing education for foster parents is so important.  I hope you’ll consider this if this has ever been your excuse.  Also, if you are considering fostering or if you support fostering, maybe through babysitting, mentoring or maybe you have a family member that fosters, I encourage you to attend the meetings in White County for the Foster Parents Association.  Our next meeting is February 6 and feel free to contact me about time and place.  These kids deserve your attention.  John 14:18, Jesus promises “I will not leave you orphans: I will come to you.” 

Random Musings of the Philpott’s

For some reason, that excuse has been weighing on my heart; probably because I’ve heard it an awful lot of late.  But other than pondering that, we have had a pretty good winter in Arkansas.  The weather has been mild with only a few nights cold enough for a fire in the fireplace. 

In the beginning of the month, we celebrated my Mom’s birthday, Addy’s birthday and me and David’s wedding anniversary.  Also. John’s adoption anniversary was on Mom’s birthday, but in our family we really don’t “celebrate” , so much as “remember” adoption dates.  The reason being, why should an adopted kid have anymore “birthday” celebrations than a biological child?   Not that it’s any less special, but what we usually do is “remember” the day with a special meal or an evening out somewhere.  For John’s day we combined it with friends and ate at Who Dats in Bald Knob!  That’s a Cajun restaurant in our area that was listed in Southern Living’s Magazine a couple years ago as  one of the “Restaurants in the south worth driving 100 miles for.”  And believe me, it is!  They serve great big ole steaks, alligator, shrimp and their famous, red beans n rice. 

Anyways, I remember John’s adoption day very well.  That day we had a huge ice storm the night before and had to drive to another county for the finalization!  We almost had to postpone it and John was as nervous as a cat in a roomful of rockers!!! He wanted so bad to be adopted.   He wanted so bad to be a Philpott.  David navigated the hilly, curvy, icy roads, despite the fact that many schools were closed that day as were several of the government buildings!! We were all bound and determined!  And I know we are all thankful the Lord held us that day. 

That brings me to another subject and that is older child adoption.  I’ll talk about that I guess next time.  It’s so important and so needed.  And SO WORTH IT! 

The rest of this month has been almost “normal” for us.  We have another house under contract and are beginning to think/talk about building our own home.  Philpott Builders continue to be extremely blessed.  David keeps building quality homes and manages to keep them at an affordable price.  And he became the President of the White County Builders Association in the beginning of the month as well.  Congratulations to David!

And then the cat…we have had quite a time with pets recently.  Turns out, Kiki, our old, fat, grumpy Calico cat had a bladder infection and had to visit the vet yesterday-adding to our debt with them!  But at least she’ll be ok-except for still mean and hateful.  At least she won’t be in pain.  Poor cat!  And my sister, who is studying to become a Vet Tech has advised us to put her on a canned cat food diet, so I guess we’ll be doing that as well. 

And that is JANUARY folks!  Whew!  Bring on February…and, thanks for reading! 

Lola Philpott

 

When I was President of the White County Foster Parents Association, one of my favorite guest speakers, was Author, Foster Mom, and Co-Chairman of the Pulaski County Adoption Coalition, Christie Erwin, author of the Middle Mom.  She is actually, also a Coordinator for the Pulaski County Heart Gallery and a founding member of the Call (Children of Arkansas Loved for a Lifetime.) Christie is definatly one of my personal she-roes.  And she has a blog; themiddlemom.com.  I read her blogs as often as possible and this past week, she posed the Million Dollar Question, or Million Dollar Excuse, that we foster parents often hear when recruiting others, "But how does fostering effect my own kids??"  Christie's article, "Won't my biological kids be effected by foster care, two?"  I started to comment on her blog but then thought I would answer on my own blog, so here we are. 

I personally hear that excuse so many times.  "I really want to foster, but I wonder if it will effect my own kids."  I always answer, "YES!"  Fostering does effect your own biological children.  Let me explain how. 

When we first began thinking of fostering and hopefully, eventually to adopt, we not only talked to each other as husband and wife, but we also talked to Presley, frequently about the idea.  She was only about 5 when we began our journey, but we were sure to include her every step of the way.  We explained to her the paperwork as we filled it out.  We introduced her to caseworkers and the folks that came to do the homestudy.  After we had had a couple of kids, when she was about 6, she was outside playing house with her dolls.  I asked her about her babies and she pointed out which ones were biological, adopted and which ones were foster kids!  It was then that I realized, this fostering was having a tremendous impact on her! Of course I was very proud! 

Along the way, Presley also saw a failed adoption with the placement in our home of a pre-teen boy.  I equate failed adoptions along the lines of a misscarriage of the heart.  I've had both and feel qualified to make that parallel.  This child failed in our home because of choices he made and those choices did effect Presley because she was already attatching to him as a sister would a brother. Nonetheless, when it was ultimatly decided he could not return to our home and that we were unable to adopt him, Presley never gave up.  "Quit" never came out of her young mouth.  She continued her prayer.  She knew what she wanted, and she wanted a baby sister and a big brother.  Eventually, her prayers, as well as our own, were answered.  I think Presley is extremly well adjusted.  She is kind and compassionate and caring and funny and all the good things you would expect of an 11 year old today. 

Once, when she was in about the thrid grade or so, some kid made a comment about being poor and maybe nothaving enough to eat or something.  Presley had the solution!  She told the kid that they could call DHS and they would come get them and bring them to our house and her parents would take care of them!!  She told them her parents had plenty of food and would buy clothes for them and other things they needed!  I cracked up laughing when she told me this, and thought, man, this kid musta had nightmares for a week!  But that describes Presley-always wanting to help. 

Last year I saw Presley packing underwear in her backpack for school.  I asked her "what the heck was she doing?!"  She said a certain friend of hers only had one pair of underwear and her Mama couldn't afford to buy any, so she figured we could share.  Naturally, I explained that we didn't need to share underwear but that maybe she was onto something! 

Y'all, this is how fostering effects your own biological children.  It builds character and compassion.  I thought these were all things we wanted for our kids. 

And we've had such awesome foster kids too.  Many we think about to this day.  Some we keep in contact with.  Some have slipped our minds.  We had one little girl that left the day we were about to leave for Spring Break in Florida.  She was packed and ready to go with us and left us that day.  That made us all sad, because we were excited to take her with us. 

Presley remembers one little girl, a 16 month old baby that came to us directly from the ER.  She was beautiful and had about a size 10 foot print on the side of her small face, where Mama's boyfriend had kicked her, hours earlier.  Presley saw how scared that baby was of Presley's own Daddy and "Bubba" (her now adopted brother)  How at 16 months old she was scared of men and mens voices.  And she watched as her Daddy gently held that baby and whispered to her that "not all men are like that."  That effected Presley. 

Presley grew very close to a teenage girl we had that we all loved very much.  One night, that teenager that shared a bedroom with our girls, left, suddenly and without goodbye in the middle of the night, via the bedroom window.  That effected Presley.  But she still has a childs love for this foster kid and often wonders about her and prays for her.  This incident grew Presley's heart even more. 

Presley liked a big ole boy we had last summer.  He toted Presley around like a kitten and she enjoyed the attention.  He rapped and enjoyed football and Presley hung on his every word.  She didn't have a crush on him, but he was a "cool, older brother type." He got the cops called on him one afternoon when he lost his temper and became violent and threatened our family.  He broke 2 of our rules and had to leave.  We wished it hadn't been with the help of local law enfocement.  This effected Presley.  It didn't make her resentful or racist or anything negative, but again, she asked that we keep him in our prayers. 

Something else I always tell prospective foster parents too, is that before you accept any child into your home, talk it over with the kids.  We always explain what the situation is and about how long they may be with us.  I'm direct, so I also tell the kids what kinds of behaviors to look out for as well.  Sometimes our kids might say, "Mom, now isn't a good time, because____________." And we take that into account.  Most the time, if the kids say no, the answer is no.  But yet, other times, I feel as parents we have to make a decision best for our family and we might agree to take a kid anyways, despite what the kids say.  And I would say, in that instance, each time, we have all been blessed and the kids were glad we did.  We had a 15 year old over Christmas break and I'll be honest, at first, both John and Presley were a little reluctant to add someone new to our family over a holiday.  We listened to their reasons and mostly, they were a little childish and selfish.  Since we thought it was a good addition to our family, we took him in and guess what??  Both kids loved him!  John and him were inseperable and Presley did have a little crush on this Justin Bieber look-a-like!  He was perfect in our home and the kids learned a little lesson about compassion, especially during the holidays!!  Now they want him to come back to spend weekends!

Fostering is a big decsion, for sure.  I just think you need to use good common sense and have your house rules spelled out.  Don't bite off more than you can chew either.  That's important, because if you try to take on a situation that is too much for you, you're only going to harm the situation even more and possibly harm your family and children  in the process. 

And of course, pray about it.  Thanks for reading and as always, if you have any questions about fostering or adopting, let me know. 

Lola Philpott

Kids and Jobs

I'm so proud of the kids!  I guess any Mama is, but this is MY blog and MY kids! lol!! 

We really try to preach hard work and keep your nose to the grindstone kinda ethic and it looks as if its paying off. (haha pun intended!)   John has, in each of our last two neighborhoods managed to secure little after school jobs caring for neighbors dogs when they leave town.  As soon as we moved over here to the new place, he did the same thing and he gets to look out after "Brock" the neighbors Chocolate Lab.  And since they seem to go away a lot of weekends, he stays pretty busy and has extra cash. 
Presley, not to be outdone by a boy went out one afternoon after school to see if she might walk some dogs for folks.  She came home with a small, blonde girl! A kid! She got an afterschool babysitting job!! I cracked up laughing but then laid out some rules of my own, after all she is only 11.  I don't mind her babysitting as long as its at our house and only for short periods of time, like, not more than a few hours. 
Well she did a good job and quickly got a raise and now Presley is raking in the cash!  This has totally taught her responsability and hopefully will help to build a work ethic.
And since both "older" kids have "jobs" Addy has started helping out at home more with the chores.  Since she was about 3, she's been sorting laundry, but now we let her put away some of the dishes and help with the puppy. 
And lest you think the kids are all work and no play....well, lol, you don't know my kids very well!  They still find time to play outside and most nights it's all I can do to bring them in.  I like that.  We look at very little tv; except they do like their iPod Touches!! I guess I can't completely shelter them!

Something else funny...John had a quiz or a paper or something today in Social Studies and the question was asked, "Why didn't the christians worship any other gods?" Or something like that and John responded in scripture, Matthew 4:10, "Then Jesus said to him, 'Away with you Satan!  For it is written, 'You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only you shall serve.'  I love a kid that knows the word!!

Let me close with a prayer requests that is heavy on my heart...
1) is this little Fella at church just found out he was diabetic.  He's 13 and just cute as a bug (my neice has a crush on him!) and recently found out he has diabetes. Please keep Grant in your prayers and he and his family adjust. 

Oh and one more thing, a shout out to my cousin, Jackie.  I forget how old she is, but she's older'n me!  Lol, she just recently went back to school, to obtain a degree, and I'm real proud of her!  It's difficult at our age n stage to step out of our box like that and do something a little unorthodox or something, but bless her heart!  You go girl!

Thanks for reading.
Lola Philpott

I Hate Passwords!

I hate passwords!  I have passwords for my debit card, my cell phone, utility accounts for the home, utility accounts for the business, I have passwords for ebay, Amazon and Craigslist.  I have passwords at work for about 4 different programs!! I hated having a password for a dern blog that took up too much time and made me go to bed too late at night, and thus, sometime after our move last fall and the holidays, I forgot my password and was unable to update my blog.  I was going to just forget about, but I have since recieved phone calls, texts and secured messages on FaceBook asking me to "please keep doing your blog." Geez!  Ok, so here we go again and we'll call this one the "new and improved."  I'm not very good at this, but we'll try it one more time anyway. 

Speaking of forgetting passwords, of course I have my debit card password memorized.  But I once drove up to the atm, fully expecting to withdraw cash and suddenly, unexpectedly, I forgot my dern password!! That quick!  That easy!  So, now I have a secret location that they are all written down and in code, so no one would even suspect, even if they found my secret stash!  Oh well!

I do want to talk about one thing that is bothering me...the new People Magazine had an article in there about Demi Moore, called Fighting Back.  Now first of all, I'm about fed up with the trash this magazine has been putting out.  I used to be a faithful reader back in the day, then it got all liberal and pushy and less about People and more about Hollyweird.  But here's what bothers me: Demi Moore quoted someone as saying, "Only children can be abandoned.  Adults can't be abandoned because we have a choice." Wow! That was cool, I thought!  Profound!  Way to go Demi.  But then in the next paragraph, she said, "What scares me is that I'm going to ultimately find out at the end of my life that I'm not really loveable, that I'm not worthy of being loved."  WHAT???  WHO THINKS THIS KIND OF STUFF??  WHO FEELS THIS WAY??  I don't get it!! Because a dude with a webbed toe ditched you for a younger model??  No, it has to go way deeper than ole Ashton Kutcher (even if he is hot).  I can't imagine feeling this low.  What about your family?  Your kids?  Your friends...is it possible she has none of the above??  Is it possible, rich, beautiful, powerful Demi Moore has no one??  That seems so sad to me.  She looks sad.  I guess its true, money can't buy everything.  This may be kinda weird, but maybe we should pray for Demi Moore.  She's a human too.  And worthy.  And lost it seems...

Well, thanks for reading and I hope to work on this tomorrow, if possible. 
Lola Philpott