clearly I am a terrible blogger

Has it really been 14 weeks since I promised a photo and update? LOL.

Okay, well forget the 26-week photo, since I am now 40 weeks and 2 days pregnant. Baby seems comfy and uninclined to make an appearance any time soon. Well, I'm sure it will be relatively soon, but probably not today. Rhanna is hoping for tomorrow (the 19th) since her birthday is September 19th. :)

The picture here is from two weeks ago when I was 38 weeks. We had such a nice family hike that day.

Life seems pretty much on hold while we wait for baby to decide to be born. Abe has been home for the last couple of months after being laid off in May; it's been great having him here for the end of the pregnancy and will be even more great having him here while baby is new. Today Rhanna is making a triple batch of pancakes, Thane is dreaming of snowcones and has learned to tie his new golf shoes, and Emrys is inexplicably calling everyone in the house "old potato!" while wearing sunglasses and a superhero cape.

I did get a few days of good nesting in (finally!) and was happy with the progress I made on my selected projects. If my hands weren't so numb all the time I'd have been able to do so much more! As it is lately, I find myself doing. . .well not much of anything. I'm sure that will be changing very soon!!

unmotivated!

Just saying hello today. :)

Thane is teaching himself to play the recorder, Rhanna is reading about Elizabeth I, Emrys is having a low-blood-sugar day and isn't doing much at all (but at least he isn't whining, either), and I am sitting here mentally doing all the things that need doing. Not *actually* doing anything, but thinking really hard. In my MIND, the closets are reorganized, the garage is cleaned out, all my doll orders are finished, and I have a freezer full of meals all ready-made. Wow, in my mind I am SOOO efficient!

Here was my belly about 2 weeks ago at 24 weeks - I'll post a 26-week photo in a few days.

I read this on another blog, and it had apparently been shared there from a myspace post, which has since been deleted, so I don't have a reference for it, but it's right on! (If someone knows who wrote this, please let me know so I can give credit.)

I was reading an article about breastfeeding the other day, and one woman's
story told how she tried breastfeeding, found it to be too hard, and quit. Her
conclusion was not to feel guilty; after all, she did the best she could. In the
end, she decided that the thing her baby most needed was her mother to be happy,
and as long as mom is happy, then the rest of the family will be better off.

I have also heard this same argument used for using pain medications
in labor. In order for the baby to not be stressed out during labor, mom needs to
not be stressed out during labor, hence the drugs.

I heartily disagree.

While the sentiment is a good one: that mothers need to be relaxed
and happy, so their children will be relaxed and happy, it should only apply when
the circumstances of making mothers happy do not endanger the health and
well-being of the children. When mothers strive to make themselves happy at the
expense of their children, that is not self-preservation; that is selfishness.

Today's culture may revere the power of choice and individual preference,
but some things weren't meant to be a choice in the first place. Breastfeeding is
one of those things. Breast isn't "best;"breast is ONLY. We are, in fact,
mammals, which means we are classified by our biological imperative to nurse our
babies at the breast. The only reason we have the option of NOT feeding our
babies at the breast is because formula companies have a vested interest in
marketing their product. The manufacturing of artificial baby formula began as a
way to nourish abandoned infants or infants whose mothers were unable to produce
milk. It has turned into a multi-billion dollar industry that has morphed from a
last-ditch effort to keep babies alive to a product that is marketed to moms
under the guise of "choice" and "liberation."(For more on the history and
development, check out Milk, Money, andMadness: The Culture and Politics of
Breastfeeding, and TopHat's ongoing review of said book.) The alternative, infant
formula, isn't just "second best," or "almost like breast milk;" it is a
chemical product which has been proven to be harmful at best, and deadly at worst,
time and time again. Formula was only intended as a lesser of two evils: baby
dying from malnutrition, or taking a dietary supplement which could make it sick,
but keep it alive.

A mother doesn't "choose" to breastfeed. She
breastfeeds period, because that is what we are designed to do. If there is
hardship, emotional stress, or inconvenience that occurs because of
that breastfeeding relationship, that is just one of those things that mothers do:
they sacrifice for what is best for their children. If she values her child's
health above all other things, she will do what she has to make sure that
breastfeeding relationship stays established, because it is the healthiest thing
for her baby. And while formula doesn't harm or kill babies sometimes, it does
other times; who wants to take that chance for the sake of personal convenience?
(Don't believe me? Google e. sakazakii. Or melamine contamination. Or
infant formula recalls.)

Sacrifice. That is a word not often heard of
anymore, especially in today's climate of entitlement. I am pretty sure I will
make a few enemies with this blog post, and almost positive I will get at
least one comment that has the word "nazi," "martyr," or "medal" in it. No one
wants to hear that anymore. They all want to hear, "You do what makes you happy,
and no one has a right to judge your choice." Our culture is also one of
convenience and speed. Any development that makes life easier, faster, or less
painful, is welcomed with open arms. The world seems to have lost the value of
hard work and building character. Which brings me to my other point: medications
during labor.

Giving birth without medications (except of course when
medically indicated) is NOT about choice: it is about doing the right
thing (although I have said before that birthing in the hospital, you have
no choices.) Any chemical substance you take into your body while pregnant will go
to your baby. Would it be acceptable for a woman to smoke marijuana during
pregnancy? How about cocaine? Should a woman be able to take opiates during labor
to help with the pain? (They already do: it's called epidural.) Enough has been
written about the risks and side effects of medications typically given in labor,
so I'm not going to belabor the point. You can learn plenty about it by googling
or picking up any book in the library. So why does the end justify the means
in this case? One word: selfishness.

Just as with infant formula, humans
were never designed to have the labor process interfered with. Yes, it hurts
sometimes. But the pain is just a part of the larger picture, which involves a
hormone exchange, among other things, that can cause serious short- and long-term
effects when interfered with. Natural childbirth isn't about being crunchy,
or wanting a medal for heroic performance; there is no prize for doing what you
ought to have been doing in the first place. It is about sacrificing your own
personal comfort for the safety and well-being ofyour child.

In looking
at the bigger picture, doing things that are hard, and persevering in the face of
adversity, builds character. It teaches us lessons that can't be learned from a
book. It makes us better people. And when we become better people, we show our
children how to become better people. If we really want to make our children
happy, we will show them how to work hard and be proud of their
accomplishments, instead of taking a pill or giving up, simply because it doesn't
suit their tastes, or because it is harder than they thought it would be.

Flame on.

Ares and Cerberus

Wow, twice in one day! That must be a record for me, lol.


I've been looking at a lot of homeschooling blogs lately and it's really fun to see what goes on in different homes. As unschoolers though, we don't have too much to report, usually. I mean, I guess there's a lot going on here all the time, but it's not structured, so I don't think of it in terms of lists I can really report. One thing we see a lot of is crafts and crafty expressions of what the kids are interested in in any given moment. Thane has been fascinated by Greek and Roman stuff lately (he asks me to call them Centurion Rhanna and Legionaire Thane most of the time) and he just made this great Cerberus helmet for Emrys I had to share:

All those dog heads get thirsty! :) Thane's is an Ares/Mars helmet. I love seeing what these kids imagine and create all on their own!

Wonders of Nature

We were out enjoying the latest snowfall a few days ago when I startled this great blue heron. I was so lucky to have the camera ready! It seems that I get a good wildlife photo once a year (last year it was a bobcat in a tree). I feel so lucky to live in this environment!

Fun learning!

A friend of mine on Facebook posted a link to this and I just love it!!! You can play (and learn) vocabulary, grammar, art history, geography, foreign languages, math and more, which is totally up my alley. I found it hard to stop today, lol! (Plus, you are apparently donating rice to hungry people. . .I never know whether or not to believe stuff like that, but this was fun and educational enough that I felt happy to pass it along - if they are really donating food, then that's a bonus.)

I've been pretty out of the loop lately; we have had about 6 weeks of illness being passed around here. First the kids all had colds (I escaped!), then a new one hit and they were all sick again, and that one didn't miss me. In fact, mine escalated into a sinus infection and pneumonia, which has been about 3 weeks of misery for me. I broke down and accepted some antibiotics for the first time in about 17 years which sort of makes me angry, but I was at the end of my rope. The plus side is that since my body doesn't "know" these drugs, they worked pretty quickly and I am finally on the mend. Baby seems to be doing well - my belly grew 3 inches in less than 3 weeks and my lower back is feeling it, lol! Imagine how huge I'd be in 20 weeks if I kept growing at that rate! LOL! Abe was able to feel some tiny flutters last night with his hand on my belly, so that's exciting. It's always so nice to be able to share that magic with the family.

More reasons I am anti-school

Is this supposed to be inspiring?? Based on commentary I have seen in various places, it appears that most people think so. Which just goes to show you how brainwashed our society is.

Let me let you in on how MY brain works when I see things like this.

What jumps out at me is that these school children are suffering from three main things:

1. Boredom. Their teacher (and the subject matter) is dull, tedious, monotonous, and a complete waste of their precious time on this earth.

2. Condescension. Due either to the ineptness or disinterest of their teacher, the subject matter being presented to them is far below their capacity, as evidenced by the obvious intelligence shown by the boy in his note. Thus, being forced to sit in rows and listen to this stupefying information is completely condescending.

3. Humiliation. The teacher's use of public humiliation as punishment is wrong and uncalled for. No one should be treated this way. She seems gleeful to have caught someone she can disgrace in front of the class (perhaps she was just glad for the interruption from her own boredom), which is just sickening. Why adults feel they have the right to prey on children this way is beyond me, and it's a TERRIBLE example being set for the rest of the children in class as well. Their reaction of anticipation shows that they already enjoy watching peers being publicly humiliated, and explains why peer activity in schools is so cruel and insensitive.

A potential #4 is that children this age should be enjoying their childhood as children, not playacting at adult romantic relationships, but this falls under the Things-Wrong-With-Mother-Culture category more than the category "Reason-#1094-I'm-Relieved-My-Kids-Aren't-Wasting-Their-Childhoods-In-School," so we'll leave that for another day. ;)