Diapers and Drivel

Love my parish priest

2012-02-12T21:44:00.000-08:00

My parish priest, who shall remain nameless, is in a word awesome. He comes to every Mass and tells people to turn off their cell phones even if he is not saying Mass. Yes, he really has to do that (we've come to that point in this day and age where people don't know that people go to church on Sundays). I get that some people are on call. Usually they put theirs on vibrate.

Today he came out and discussed a few things about the recent health care "compromise." He explained that during the early 90s Clinton (Hilary that is) made health care a big priority in this country. She got a few states including this one to change their health care laws to include things like contraception. But there were loop holes in which religious groups, dioceses, could avoid violating their conscience. In this case, if you were self-insured you did not have to provide contraceptive coverage. So the diocese, after a period of time, managed to become self-insured.

That is that they came up with the policy and footed the bills themselves based on employment and co-pays etc. Some self-insurers work through insurance carriers but generally speaking they do all the foot work.

Our diocese, the priest explained, is not the only diocese in the country that has had to do this. Several have in order to not violate state law and God's law.

The point is that although the HHS mandate says that churches, religious-based charities, and religious-based university don't have to pay for contraception. However, their insurers do. Which make a huge problem when your diocese-based charity say St. Vincent de Paul Society which works with the poor who aren't necessarily Catholics has a worker who wishes to get contraception. Because it is the diocese who own the insurance policy and is the insurance carrier, and therefore will still legally have to provide contraception for free for this employee. In other words, the diocese still has to directly cover contraception with this new "compromise."

After he explained all this and said that we're still in a fight for civil liberties, there was a round of applause. I would have clapped too, but for two things: 1) I had a sleepy baby in my arms. 2) I don't particularly like giving applause. The point of Mass is to sing praises to God not congratulating the priest on his rousing explanation and "call to arms."

Also I got that "lovely" e-mail from the White House in response to signing the petition. I plan on dissecting it at some point, but don't know when that will be (or if it will be necessary since if Obama thinks that this has shut us up and will make us go away, he's totally wrong. He'll have to come up with a different plan.)

Editor's note: My husband has been telling me that my grammer and speling has totally got to pot, appologies for that. i get three hour stretches of sleep these days with a total of 5-6 at night. so i haven't really cared to correct nothing. you understand. *you get that those typos are on purpose right? :)

Some Responses

2012-02-11T22:08:00.000-08:00

I've got a couple of responses to things people have said over the web.

Strange, but not too horrible~ someone posed the question that if Catholic believe that contraception interferes with life than are we allowed to sterilize our animals.

As far as I know, we can sterilize our animals. The reason is that they are animals not people. The morals posed on a person's fertility are different than those about how we treat our animals. A person has dominion over their pet and therefore can decide what's in the best interest of that pet.

I have read on a website, however, that in Mexico they don't neuter their pets "because it's a Catholic thing." There has been nothing, as far as I know, saying that you can't spay your animal. So I'm guessing that this is one of those cultural things not a teaching.

There are only two religious groups that I have found that speak about this: Islam and Orthodox Judaism. In some Islamic circles it is okay to sterilize your animal for the greater good. In Orthodox Judaism, you cannot sterilize yourself or your animal unless it is your pet to prevent animal cruelty.

Another thing I've read recently from Catholic bloggers is the benefit of Napro Technology on helping fertility problems in loo of the pill. This is true I'm sure in fertility cases, but as far as my understand of things it does not help in instances where the pill is used for a condition outside of fertility that fertility exacerbates.

Acne, for example, is not something that Napro treats. You can, however, find alternative treatments to hormone therapy (the pill) or you can for a short time use the pill to bring your hormones under control and then wean yourself off.

Other conditions like anemia, sometimes the pill is the only correction for the problem. With anemia, a blood disorder not a fertility issue, you have low iron. The treatments for anemia vary depending on the severity. For less severe cases, you simply supplement your diet with iron and have a diet with iron rich foods. For more severe cases, these treatments don't work. And when you have any kind of blood loss such as that associated with menstruation, you hemorrhage. And I mean hemorrhage to the point where your periods link up together and you may end up developing an aneurism. I've spoke about this before. The pill thus becomes the only way to avoid death. I know of no other way other than permanent sterilization or menopause. Perhaps there is research being done to help women with this condition, but I haven't seen any other treatments other than temporary or permanent sterility.

I'm only mentioning this because a lot of people push Napro technology as a way to free people from using the pill, when in some cases Napro technology, which addresses fertility conditions, isn't applicable. My mother didn't have any fertility issues that I'm aware of. She had a blood disorder, which again is different.

And it really doesn't work too well for men who are for all intensive purposes are sterile. Men are either one of two ways: always fertile or always sterile (to varying degrees). If your seamen doesn't contain sperm, Napro technology won't help you with that either since it's focus is on women's fertility. You can't produce something that's not there.

So while I think Napro technology is great for women with PCOS or other fertility disorders at avoiding hormonal replacement therapies, it can't help other conditions which the pill treats.

But that's not at issue with the HHS mandate. Everyone I've talked to has said that the Church (normally) covers prescription pill use for conditions like anemia, for which there are no other known treatments. The only qualm the Church has is covering prescription pills used for fertility. So women who really do need the pill can get it like they can penicillin. And as someone pointed out the HHS mandate isn't forcing insurance companies to cover for free things like Tylenol, which treat a medical condition, or toothpaste, which prevent a medical condition. I think until all basic drug coverage is universally and unilaterally free, it's really suspect that a woman can get birth control pills free without so much as a co-pay.

7 Quick Slogans Against HHS Mandate

2012-02-10T09:00:00.000-08:00

Please note that these are meant to be tongue in cheek. I realize that this whole thing is serious, but we all need a laugh everyone once in a while.

Top 7 Anti-HHS Mandate Slogans You Will Find at a Picket Location Near You

President Obama

Your Health Care Plan Stinks Like a Llama

We won't break the bank

So you can act like a skank

(probably not very charitable, but that's humor for you)

We won't pay for you to abort

So we'll see you in court

(referring to the wave of law suits that have been recently filed)

I won't pay for your womb

To be someone else's tomb

Keep your ovaries

off my rosaries

(someone else's; meant to be a play on the pro-abortion crowds chants)

Let Freedom ring

And strike down that HHS Mandate thing

(meant to be supportive of bill Right's of Conscience)

This won't do

This won't fly

Even Jesus won't qualify

(meaning the "exceptions" supposedly in the mandate don't work)

Of course we could always go with the classic, hey hey ho ho HHS Mandate's got to go.

Link up with 7 Quick Takes.

Update: Still think that it's totally applicable. Who does Obama think he's fooling? You pay for the insurance. It's just a more indirect way to violate one's conscience. It sickens me that some Catholic groups are approving this charade.

The Mother load

2012-02-07T21:00:00.000-08:00

This was HB's birthday cake. Can you tell that it's Bob the Tomato?

Well, it's been a rather rough week, but we've made it. Hubby catches a plane in a few hours for his business trip. He'll be gone for three days roughly.

HB's birthday went well. His Grammie sent him a care package of a foam football, which he adores. And he got some of those special crayola markers that only work on that special paper. We didn't really get him anything. I got him a coloring book, made him a cake, and our friends bought him some really cool color pencils (they are triangular so they don't roll of the table) and a book. So I didn't get him anything because we all know with toddler the nostalgia wears off quickly.

But Hubby's going to be out of town so I went and got the mother load of toys from goodwill for all of 30 dollars. They include *taking deep breath* a soft book with a baby that you move around called Babe (I figure it can be shared between brothers), a soft block (random thing), a car, some wood blocks (not a complete set but who cares), those foam floor puzzle things (missing pieces but again who cares), a bunch of animals, some more of those special markers, an electric toy that makes like your driving a car, a car track (need to get small enough cars for it first), cookie cutters (because all the ones I find are MIC), 10 mini containers of MIC playdough (I can make my own but I thought what the hell), another electric gizmo that reads like a book, and a complete Peanuts nativity set (Woodstock is playing the baby Jesus). Turns out the nativity set is probably not good for him now since you could easily snap the heads off. So it will be saved for Christmas time since he'll be nearly three then. Although he'll have to keep his 1 year old brother away from it.

I haven't turned around his car seat. Don't figure that will happen until he's three because they recommend 2 years and 40 lbs. HB is 25 lbs now. His brother, who is a Chunky Monkey, will have no problem with that I imagine. He's so big that he's out distancing HB when HB was the same age.

My next goal is to get some foam pieces for the bathtub (make shapes with) and some felt for a felt board of sorts. I also want to make them Lambkin's for Easter.

Oh, and before I forget some of the posts from the other blog.
Milk Expression: Pumping is an Art Form
Milk Expression: About Breast Pumps
This one is not from me but another editor. It's a really riveting read about her struggles with breast feeding. Makes me appreciate that mine are minor (although it didn't feel that way at the time) in comparison.
My Adventures in Breastfeeding

Is my cooking really that bad?

2012-02-03T12:51:00.000-08:00

While the Catholic blosphere blows up about Obamacare and Komen, I sit at home waiting for other things to blow. Namely people.

Early this morning, I heard my husband talking. I thought it was his usual bout of insomnia, rolled over, and went back to sleep. Until 6 am, when I heard clear across the house the manliest of upchucking I have ever heard. And that is saying much since I lived with my dad and my brother for many years.

"Don't make fun of me." Hubby says. "I wasn't. I was being serious. For a guy who was puking his guts out, you did it loud and proud. I almost wanted to get up and ask you if my cooking was really all that bad. I mean you had to make it obvious."

It was so loud that it woke the baby up too.

Anyways...Hubby slept his life away because apparently he didn't sleep at all last night because of this stomach bug. And I joked that I would be next. Which really isn't funny because unlike other members of the house, I don't stop once I get going. Not even if all that's coming up is water or bile.

Hopefully the baby won't get it either. I imagine that would be a trip to the ER.

And the hits just keep on

2012-02-01T12:13:00.000-08:00

So today Hubby and HB are supposed to be boarding a plane to go to Hubby's grandfather's funeral. Hubby is supposed to be a pall bearer and give the eulogy. I say supposed to because well...last night HB started throwing up. Sometimes he does with a cold. He threw up all over the couch and himself. So we sent him to bed a while later thinking that it was his usual cold thing...until

Until a couple hours later he woke up have vomited a little bit later. And then after straightening that out. Hubby was holding him and he spit a little more up. He went to sleep and was fine. Hubby and I went to bed exhausted and I figured that was it. The accumulated snot, which all toddler end up eating even when you tell them not to even when you chase them down to wipe their nose, was out of his system. Was I right?

No, this morning Hubby went and got us breakfast. HB ate it and not too much later he pucked again. And it was strange because he was fine just wanting to climb in my lap when out it came. All over the carpet. So that was that. No, plane trip.

Top that off with another small child spewing all over me (massive spit up). I feel worn out a bit. Hubby stayed home even though he could have worked a half day. He'll go into work tomorrow. He wants to work extra hours in order to accumulate sick/vacation time faster especially since we have this credited plane ticket in his and HB's name. And they're such sticklers. You have to redeem them together.

Oh, caught this news article:

Pfizer recalls 1 million packets of US birth control pills

I click on it thinking "oh finally someone is realizing that these things are deaths waiting to happen." Um, not really. No they're being recalled because of a manufacturing/packaging error. Apparently the placebos are in the wrong spot and so they are being recalled because of gasp "packaging error that could put women at risk of unintended pregnancy."Oh, the horror!Yea, gats! A woman can get pregnant! Really! I just didn't realize that having indiscriminate sex meant that you could have a baby! Oh, wow! Maybe they should put that on the package. Wait...they do.It's listed under "rates of efficacy."

Seriously people. Birth controls are not fool proof. If you're doing it, regardless of what methods you use for prevention, you run the risk. Deal with it or don't do. It's that simple. I can't for the life of me understand why people are making such a big deal over "you'll get pregnant." Like it's a disease. Just tell women to throw the darn things out (and not down the toilet please) and forewarn them of the higher risk. But seriously if they don't know that there is always, always a "risk of unintended pregnancy." Then they are dumb or uninformed

Editors note: Oh, I give up; I can't figure out what's wrong with the spacing.

Doppelganger Sheets

2012-01-30T15:14:00.000-08:00

This weekend has not gone well for us. For starters, I got this cryptic letter from my aunt telling me that her "friend" was still in the pokey. Talking to my dad, it turns out that my aunt's long time boyfriend went psycho and bit her several times so she had him arrested. He's so nuts that they haven't been able to arraign him.

On top of that giant cake of caca, my MIL called on the morning of HB's birthday for what I thought would be to wish him a happy birthday. So I joshed her about her son refusing to answer the telephone until she bubbles out that her FIL, Hubby's grandfather, had died that morning. Which threw a whole wrench into my grand plan to take HB out in the morning for some birthday fun. Not so fun when your Hubs is getting plane tickets to go be a pall bearer at his grandpa's funeral.

And then my friend came to visit me. Despite breastfeeding it doesn't matter. I'm a fertile myrtle. Not that I should complain about it, but you know how over emotional periods can make you. They also tend to wear you down.

And the baby's been extra fussy lately.

So I threw in a load of laundry, got into it with Hubby, and sent him out to move them into the dryer. Now I remember opening a washer and saying to myself, "let's put our clothes way over here so nobody gets them mixed up because these people have similar sheets."

And lo and behold I forgot to tell Hubby. And he decided to save money and put that person's sheets into the dryer with ours. When I went to pull everything out I noticed a dress that was not mine, etc, etc. Until I realized that most of that stuff was ours and some theirs including the doppelganger sheets. What are the odds that someone has a set of twin sheets in green, a stripped pillow case from Walmart that looks like HB's sheets and a tan pillow case from JC Penney's like ours. The only way I could tell the difference was that our sheet isn't quite that green, the stripped pillow case is in HB's room because I haven't washed it, and the tan pillow case was a different size with slightly different trim. It was that confusing.

So sorry person with doppelganger sheets. We didn't really mean to make your laundry go "missing." Hope you liked the free dry. BTW nice sheets. :)

7 Quick Takes- Astronomy vs Planetary Science

2012-01-27T08:00:00.000-08:00

So priest's wife talks about her husband and what he does. I thought I would explain some of what hubby does because I think thus far I've been rather vague about it.

Think of the bold as the most commonly asked questions and the regular text as the responses he gives.

1) So what do you do for a living?- I'm a planetary scientist.

2) I have this strange bush in my yard. It looks like X,Y,Z. What is it?- That's botany. Planetary science is Earth, Mars, Venus...

3) Oh, so about that group of stars up there. What is that?- Um, I'm not sure. That's astronomy. I really should know my constellations, but I don't.

4) Okay. So if I want to point my telescope to Venus?- Um, I think it's over there. I should know, but I study meteorites. I don't work with telescopes.

5) So if you don't work with telescopes, what the heck do you do?- I work in a lab. *Me interjecting* He used to work in the basement. It's really cold down there.

6) A lab?- Yeah, I take meteorites and I heat them up in a furnace and I date them. It's like carbon dating except I study potassium decaying to argon or argon- argon dating. I can't tell you exactly the age of the rock, but I can tell you the last impact it had. *me again* He means the last time something hit it. You see meteorites are usually parts of an asteroid. What he does fits into the overall picture of how old exactly the solar system is.

7) So let me spell it out for you. Astronomy studies things outside the solar system and planetary science is all about stuff in the solar system. Knee's godmother is an astronomer. She studies outer planets. That is planets not in our solar system and she works with telescopes. Hubby is a planetary scientist. He works with rocks from space either meteorites or lately lunar rocks. He works in a lab with tiny samples. There are amateurs out there who can run a telescope better than he can. Also all those missions to Mars and stuff. Those are run by planetary scientists not astronomers (although they have their own stuff too). Hubby's former roommate was on the Phoenix mission. So does it make sense now?

Toothbrushes and Snoods

2012-01-26T21:46:00.000-08:00

The reason why I don't brush my teeth all that often...well aside from being forgetful because unless my teeth feel gritty I don't notice. My toddler has an obsession with toothbrushes. Imagine sitting down with your toothbrush in hand and toothpaste. You start to squeeze on a dab and your toddler zooms in the room. Next thing you know he's trying to pry the toothbrush out of your hand so he can use it. But you tell him no that it's yours. He screams no himself and starts having a fit complete with banging his head against the bathroom cabinets or the floor. He's so mad he's shaking. And that is why I refrain from brushing my teeth in front of my toddler. Because he loves to brush his teeth and he thinks every toothbrush in the house is his.

Oh, he's got three toothbrushes of his own, but that doesn't matter. I could hand him his toothbrush, but that never works. He's a typical kid. He always wants what he can't have.

Now daddy can brush his teeth without nearly all that trouble. I don't understand why that is with kids. Even my mother complained. If we had a scary dream at night, we'd wake her up and never dad. I don't know why it was that way, but it was. I'm sure it's the same thing here. Daddy's toothbrush is either not as cool as mom's or he thinks that he and mommy share everything.

Sure I could let this go on for days and he'd probably get over it. That is until one day I accidentally leave my toothbrush next to the sink. But there are some things a mom needs to do by herself. Heck, if I can't poop by myself in peace, then I think the least I can do is shower and brush my teeth by myself. There has to be some line in the sand.

Switching gears...

I've noticed that people have been looking at my snood. I'm wondering if it's Cam showing it off or if it's just become of interest to people. Don't know which. But if your curious about how all this head covering started here's where I started giving it a shot. About two years ago. Why? Well, you can read it for yourself.

The Family Unit Update

2012-01-26T21:33:00.000-08:00

So our kids have colds again. I've heard it's common for kids to get colds 1-4 times a year.

HB's burn has scabbed over and it looks nastier than I originally thought, but then again don't all scabs. He's been repeating things I've been saying including phrases/short sentences. Managed to get him to repeat "Love you." He's also been working on his number sheet and I attempted to get him to work on some fine motor with penne pasta and pipe cleaner (stringing it on) which turned into an utter fail. I think I'll have to bring back the "put the pasta through the holes in a box" one for a few months until he grows into stringing things. We've also been looking through the junk mail and identifying letters. And no I did not push him to learn his letters. He's just a bit obsessed with them at the moment. I want to start working on colors and shapes too, but I think that's going to require me to make a flannel board (well tack flannel on the wall). He's great at kicking his soccer ball. We've brought it indoors because of his cold and he's been going nuttso with it including tackling it at times. He's a typical toddler and keeps climbing over the couch including one scary moment when he took a header off the couch. He bounced back up. One of these days he's going to end up in the ER. I just know it.

Our Wii died. Okay it's not dead dead, but it's not reading the remotes for some odd reason so we're unable to watch netflix on it. Which is good because we watch way too much tv as it is.

Knee is growing by leaps and bounds. He's definitely the chubby baby I've always envisioned. He sleeps pretty predictably which is nice. And for the most part he's calm. He's loosing hair on the sides of his head, which I know is normal. He's getting better with his neck and is able to turn his head and hold it up for a bit. He's also cooing. I don't really remember HB really cooing like this. He cried all the time. But I hear oo, oo and that sort of thing from time to time. He also can pee HB under the table. I can't believe someone so small can pee more than their brother and I'm not talking the number of times. I'm talking it's a deluge. One of the diapers I bought for HB is a little too small. But HB never peed to the point of leaking through it in a couple of hours. It snaps down to fit Knee and two hours later his onesie is wet. *sigh* But the spitting up has subsided so that's good. It was getting really old really fast that I would end up with spit up down my shirt. HB barely spit up. I guess his stomach handled the boobie better.

Speaking of boobie, the brothers get along okay. Well one is still an infant. HB does try to sit on his brother and lays on him a lot to try and kiss him. He means well. He knows that you give kisses and hug the ones that you love. He just doesn't understand that his brother is a lot smaller than he is. And he also doesn't understand why his brother gets boobie more than he does. Usually HB gets really upset and mad at me and ends up hitting me or hitting his brother if I tell him "not right now." Ah, well. He'll get used to it.

And Hubby is looking into getting a grant so that we can have a better income. Knee's godfather, who is Happy's (the girl I used to watch) dad, is a planetary scientist in Florida. He gave Hubby the idea for a project he's been interested in working on. It's a long story, but Hubby hopes to work on it with left over samples from the project he's already assigned to. If it works out, Hubby will be able to write a paper and list Happy's dad as the co-author. I keep my fingers cross that it works out because having a 40 percent jump in income would be really nice. As Hubby put it, it would be as if I took a minimum wage full time job and the kids were in day care for free. As it stands, it look like we'll either have to live off savings until the current project is done or I go to work part time and find someone to watch the kids. But I'm sure Hubby can pull it off. He seems to have that sort of grace from God.

In February Hubby heads off on his business trip to obtain samples for his project. It's only three days, but still... He'll also be leaving in March.

And he may end up leaving sooner than all that. He's wanting to go to his grandfather's funeral because it's expected that he's going to passing away soon. I don't like that because I'm not sure about the expense, but I'm not going to tell him no. I suppose to me funerals aren't so big a deal (I've been to so many). It's being with the person while their alive that makes a difference. I certainly hope for his grandfather's sake that his passing is quick and painless. His health has been growing worse since I met him.

And lastly me. I'm doing fine. Great even. I have a ton of energy despite having little sleep. I don't understand it. And the hives went away (and hopefully will never come back). I'm not back into every single article of clothing, but I know sometimes that takes six months. I plan on donating my hair, but we've been making dentist and eye doctor appointments so I'm not sure when in the series of events that will happen. I haven't been to see the eye doctor since 2007. And Hubby, who has a family history of glaucoma, hasn't been in a couple of years. The dentist is rather important especially if your nursing. You tend to loose calcium in your bones and develop cavities if you don't watch it (that and if you've been reading I'm rather neglectful of my oral hygiene).

Potty Training

2012-01-25T22:29:00.000-08:00

HB is about to be two. Yikes! And while I have no plans to push the potty, he knows how to open the lid to our toilet, put in the insert, and sit fully clothed on the toilet. I might have shown him 2-3 times. But he's done it all on his own about that much. I think he needs a potty seat and other potty accessories.

So from all my years of potty training other people's kids, I admit that I'm nervous. I'm so used to working with what I've got. To they push a reward system? Is the kid interested or not? Do they use cloth or pull-ups? I now have to decide for myself.

And the verdict has been to let HB train himself. I introduce what these things are and how we use them (like the insert) and he can take over at his own pace.

But that also means an investment in more cloth so that he can pull his clothing up or down. I figure I can wait it out until the summer, but buy him that potty seat for him to slowly get used to the idea. Plus he's not shown any interest in trying to put his clothes on or off himself (other than to kick his pants off during a diaper change or unvelcro a diaper). I'm still looking into matters. I looked at some plastic pants from Gerber that everybody who used reusable used. The undies are great and non-Chinese. The pants were made in China. And the nice ones sold in the states are a bit expensive.

So I'm thinking I'll buy some of those padded underwear trainers and Bummis whisper pants, which are made in Canada, unless I can find something that's good and equally affordable. They have a trainer that hasn't gotten great reviews.

Also hope I won't have to deal too much with night time training. I've never had to deal with that. Fortunately neither myself nor Hubby were bed wetters. So theoretically there's only a 15 percent chance of that happening to either one of our kids. Bed wetting is mostly genetic. If you have one parent who did so, it's 44% likely your child will and if both parents then 77%. So once their night trained, we shouldn't have anymore problems. My boss had a bed wetter (he was 8), but she didn't make a big deal of it. He just wore those night time pull-up things for older kids.

Oh, and here's an article I wrote about it. Obviously, it's on my brain. I suppose that's bound to happen with two in diapers.

What's so Special about Mary?

2012-01-25T21:59:00.000-08:00

This is not true of all Protestants. I've seen some that downplay Mary's role and I've seen some that are just as gaga over Mary as any Catholic. So please understand that I'm not trying to categorize anyone. That being said this discussion is to talk about one extreme's view of the BVM (blessed virgin mary).

I recently got into a discussion with a guy who made some off handed comment about Mary being on the mother of Jesus. His exact wording was Mary was Jesus's earthly mother that's all. To believe that is to deny the Trinity at worse and at best to downplay Mary.

The Trinitarian belief is that Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit are one and eternal. They have always been regardless of when Christ's conception took place.

It is also the Christian belief that Jesus was both equally divine and human.

Therefore Mary gave birth to both Jesus's divinity and his humanity. In other words, she also gave birth to God (and the Holy Spirit).

Take that a step further and you can see the logic says that Mary is not only Christ's earthly mother but she is also the Mother of God.

Keep going and you can concede that God is the creator of us all. Therefore Mary gave birth to God who created us so she is also our mother (or grandmother if you want to get technical about that).

And that's why she is so darn important.

But...but...but. I can see the logic train has left some still disagreeing.

Let's look at it from an earthly point of view. I have given birth to two boys. I gave birth to both their soul and their physical body. These are not separate and have (thus far) not been separate since conception. This is part of who they are. To say that I gave birth to HB's soul or Knee's body only is to place a higher value of one over the other (we won't go into if the body's evil for sake of argument it's not). There is not higher intrinsic value of the soul over the body or vice versa. So if one is to say that I gave birth to these children, they would be referring to both parts of them. I gave birth to both HB and Knee's souls and bodies. I am their mother. So I am the mother of both their souls and bodies. Get it?

To use this analogy, Mary gave birth to both Christ's divinity and humanity. They aren't separate and neither holds higher value over the other. To say that Mary is only the early mother of Jesus is to hold Christ's humanity higher over his divinity instead of equally when it comes to his birth. Or that they are somehow separate. And because they are not separate then Mary also gave birth to God. Yes, I'm repeating myself.

But if you knew someone gave birth to say some important figure to you and you ran into them in the airport, you would hold them in high regard by virtue of being the parent of someone you admire. You wouldn't discard their role nor would you say that their mother only gave birth to their body. It wouldn't make sense.

And that's what's so special about Mary and why she is held in high regard. Capisce?

Well, I'll be

2012-01-25T08:39:00.000-08:00

Has this ever happened to you? I was comparing HB's baptismal certificate with Knee's and discovered....that two years later (almost) that HB's has the wrong birth date! It's been hanging on the wall forever and I noticed the names for spelling but not the birth date. Called the parish and they are going to send us a correction.

Hubby had a similar problem with a publication listing every article with the wrong year. Hubby had to tell the publisher about it. It's still not correct when people site his article despite the correction in the next issue. They've also not published his pictures in color when he paid for them, which also was corrected.

I suppose the baptismal thing deserves a face palm on my part.

Oh, I believe in Yesterday

2012-01-24T21:26:00.000-08:00

So Yesterday, I got up in the morning and took charge of things. I left the children with Hubby (he takes Mondays off) and went to the bank and the store. Then I was going to work on laundry until Hubby told me to read some article while he threw in the loads which sparked off The Conversation. We've been meaning to have this particular conversation for a while. It's not a bad conversation; just one of reevaluation and growth. I'm sure all married couples can relate. There are all those stages you go through and this conversation was about that. It was good; it was needed; but it was exhausting.

By this point both the kids were awake from nap, so Hubby reheated leftovers and I managed to sit on the couch and veg. Hubby sits down and this is what was so great about yesterday.

Me: I need to get up and work on the dishes and laundry.

Hubby: Those aren't the three most important things right now.

Me: What? *frantically going through the to-do list in my head. what did I miss that was so important? did if forget an errand? a chore?*

Me: What did I miss? What's so important?

Hubby: *starts to tick them off on his fingers* Well, you need to eat something. Then you need to take a bath or a shower. Which one do you want?

Me: *thinks for a second* a bath

Hubby: Good. You need to relax. And then you need to go brush your teeth.

Me: *groan* Do I really smell that bad?

Hubby: No, you just need to stop taking care of the rest of us and go take care of yourself.

Me: Okay. *decide it's better not to argue since he's not arguing for me doing the dishes over say brushing my teeth*

I saunter over to the kitchen and get something else besides leftovers because I'm totally lame. Then I go head to the tub and grab reading material on the connection between Petocin-induced labors and autism. I sink into the tub thinking this is what Hubby means by relax. Meanwhile outside Hubby holds down the fort.

About ten minutes later, the door opens. I'm thinking this means Hubby is getting something. I look up and he's holding a glass on a salad plate. In the glass is some yellow liquid substance with four dark chocolate Hershey's kisses, which were a joke from earlier when Hubby wrote on the shopping list to buy kisses for Hubby. He mean to give him kisses.

Me: Is that juice?

Hubby: Not exactly. *sets it down on the side of the tub*

By this point, my sniffer can figure it out.

Me: Oh, it's wine.

Hubby nods and exists the room.

I say all this because I rant an awful lot, too much about all the crap that goes on around here. And Hubby has pointed out that it's totally all one sided and I do not talk about anything nice he does. And he's right. I don't and I should. So that's why this post. My husband does pay attention and he can think of doing nice romantic things all on his own (without spousal hints).

Thanks Hubs. It was nice. Made my weekend.

And it's not over yet

2012-01-24T13:01:00.000-08:00

My day has been a whirlwind. I'm currently sitting here typing and eating cake because there is no alcoholic beverages in my house.

My day started off normal. HB and I worked on dot numbers using this worksheet and stickers. Mostly he just stuck stickers on the first page on the dots. It will take a while and multiple uses for him to get his numbers. He's not quite two yet.

I did the dishes that had piled up over the weekend due to the business of the baptism. And I sorted out laundry to be folded and put a way. A task I plan on finishing after I de-stress and have my cake (and eat it too).

Everything was going fine until it got closer to lunch and then of course nap. HB was having a bit of a melt down. He kept hitting me and saying "ouch" minus the ch. So I started to work on lunch, which was tv dinners. Hey, don't judge. Busy weekend. Two kids with colds. Lack of sleep. TV dinners it is.

This one had pudding in it and I popped it in. When it was done, I made the faux pas of putting it on the dining room table. You'll understand why in a minute. I called HB over for lunch. He can climb into his booster seat himself. His milk was also on the table. The baby was fussing so I fetched him and when I turned around I heard the milk drop to the floor. I sighed and then HB started screaming. Not the kind of "I'm tired and you're a terrible Mommy" scream. This was "I'm hurting."

I turn around to see HB shaking, screaming, and his arm covered in pudding. Apparently he had slipped and his elbow went into the pudding. A split second reaction and I knew that it was burning his skin. So my first aid instincts kicked into gear. Hey, I've burnt a few kids at day care with their meals being too hot. It happens. Usually though I'm not contending with an infant.

Knee, realizing that something was wrong, also kicked his instincts in high gear. Danger, Will Robinson, Danger! And started wailing. I immediately put him on the floor. What do you do when there's an emergency and you're hold an infant. Put them some place safe even if it's the floor. Down he went. In the process, he grabbed my hair, another one of those infant instincts ie hold onto the adult in case you're next. So I had to pry his hand open and simultaneously pull out my hair (which some ended up pulling out from head and not his hand) so he cried even harder.

I grabbed a nearby towel (okay don't do this this is bad 1st aid) and wiped up most of the chocolate pudding and simultaneously dragged my teary eyed toddler to the sink and turned on the cold water.

Did it warrant a trip to the ER? Thankfully no. When evaluating the seriousness of the burn you need to keep several factors in mind (1st aid lesson for you). 1) How long was the person burning for? In this case a minute tops. 2) How big is the burn? Small area at the elbow. 3) Where is the burn? Is it in a sensitive area like the eye? Nope. Just his elbow. 4) What's the color? It's a little red like a sunburn and only a bit of skin sloughed off. It's basically a small 1st degree burn. So the ER doc would have laughed at me and told me to go home.

After settling HB down which involved boobie (breastfeeding is the best pain reliever). I managed to get the boys settled down and went to get something else for HB to eat because even though the pudding was cold by this point, he wasn't having it.

The phone rings...I'll let the machine get it. It's the office of vital record ie the birth certificate office. We have to send off for ours. I answer the phone. Yes, we've received your request but we have no record of Knee's birth. What birthing center did you give birth at? *rolling my eyes* Apparently, they never turned in the paper work for his birth to either the state or the SSA. She tells me to call them ASAP and that she'll send me back my stuff. So Knee's only record of existence is the one we received two days ago: his baptismal record. Well, at least we have that. It could be far worse.

And that's been my day.

Yesterday was far more pleasant. I wanted to post about that (or else my husband might get upset with me), but it's also a long story so I'll do that later.

So now you know why I'm eating cake and nursing the baby. My other son is worse for wear and my baby wasn't "born" according to all paper work. I wonder if this gives cause to get an extension on our taxes.

Update: You know what they say when you assume. Well, the birthing center called back. They did fax off stuff. Something is going on. So she said she's going to call and find out what the deal is. I'll let you know when I know.

For Cam

2012-01-23T21:33:00.000-08:00

So, first I wanted to say how much I adore Cam. She's been hit heavily lately with some rather nasty comments and has managed to bear it with humility and charity (something which I'm sorely lacking. What a great model she is to me.) So this post is for her.

A while back, I "won" (since only me and one other were interested in) her snood/headcovering patterns. I told her that I would make one up and post the pictures for her. And I'll give her accolades because while I can follow a pattern, I cannot make one up in my head. I'm just not that creative. The patterns she sent me were more like directions with photos. They were easy enough to follow if you know enough about sewing. I will say that the hand sewing part threw me off a bit so I'm not sure if I followed it correctly. Cam, I just folded it according style and pulled my needle through the pleats. Not sure if that's what you intended it, but it's working for me. I admit when it comes to some sewing things I get confused easily.

I chose a type of fabric that's more celestial/planetary because my husband is a planetary scientist. The fabric was intended for another project that I dropped, but it works out great as a snood. I did modify the measurements like she suggested because I have a small head (really, hats and I are not friends) that and I didn't have enough fabric width. I made the snood over the course of three days, which anyone else could do in a matter of an hour. It took me that long because I had to get creative about how to find time to make it as in pinning it while propping the baby up to nurse, sewing it with the baby propped up, and that sort of thing. I was making it for Knee's baptism which is where these photos come from.

Oh, and the snood fits great (I'm thinking it's because I fit it for my head specifically thanks to Cam's suggestions). It's easy to put on and has minimal slippage. I say minimal because I was wrestling with a toddler and sweating profusely during the whole ordeal so naturally it was moving around quite a bit. Under normal circumstances I don't think it would have moved a tiny bit.

Side view. Sorry it's a bit blurry. The photographer wasn't exactly trying to take pictures of me.


Back view. I was thrilled that the planet made it prominently in the middle.

Cam, you are more than welcome to steal the photos and the comments if you'd like for either your blog or Etsy.

Also in response to the whole "head covering is so not a normal Catholic thing" I have this to say. It's making a comeback with young people. My church in particular has a number of mantilla wearers. I think I'm the only one who uses a snood. Anyways...at this baptism there was a very young couple (I'm assuming highschool age or barely graduated) having their child baptized. Behind them were their supporting friends and one was wearing a mantilla. The photographer managed to get a shot with her in the background. I hope she doesn't mind seeing herself kinda blurry on the internet. I don't like to post too many photos of strangers but it happens from time to time when out in public.


Beautiful isn't it?

So there you have it. And now I really should attempt to get some sleep despite being so tired that I'm wired (if that makes sense).

Exorcized the Devil Out of Him

2012-01-22T20:42:00.000-08:00

here's an after birth photo of Knee.

Got baptized today. Have photos to share with family and friends, but I'll do that later when his godmother sends ones from her camera so I can choose the best ones. (we took a lot compared to HB's baptism).

Oh, and thought that I would share a better explanation of the birth story than I did on this website. It's better typed and longer if you want something easier to read.

I also told Hubby that we were exorcizing the devil out Knee. He thought I was kidding until I said that there's a rite of exorcism imbedded in the Baptismal rites. Yeah, really. Here's where it happened, Hubs. I was out in the bathroom with one unruly toddler at the time, but I could still here it through the speakers.

During the Sacrament of Baptism, the Priest says two prayers of Exorcism.

90. The first one is said after the reading of the Gospel. During that prayer, the Priest commands any impure spirits who might be present to depart from the person to be baptised. This process is to purify the physical body of the believer. The spiritual body does not need purification because a new creation will be born when the sinful one dies.

91. The second prayer of Exorcism is called "Ephpheta." (Ephpheta means 'Be opened') After the prayer, the Priesttouches the ears and mouth of the child with his thumb. He then says, "The Lord Jesus made the deaf hear and the dumb speak. May He soon touch your ears to receive His Word, and your mouth to proclaim His faith, to the praise and glory of God the Father."

Source

Have a Spare Moment

2012-01-21T15:57:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow is my second child's baptism. I've been frantically baking cakes and frosting them. And I've realized something. Don't try getting creative with cakes while you're about to fall asleep on your feet and when your oldest has a cold. They look alright, but they could be a whole lot better. The Bob cake I think looks cute so I took a picture (need to get the other one). It's for HB's birthday which is in a week. Long story as to why making that cake now.

The baptismal cake fell apart on me while taking it out of the pan. I iced it up to cover the cracks, but my sea shell leaves something to be desired. Oh, well. So much for my patience and skill. I'm too tired. Alas. Alas. I don't think Knee will care right now (and hopefully by the time he realizes it he won't care).

More Buy Made in USA

2012-01-21T12:46:00.000-08:00

So here's my list of more stuff that you can buy made here at home.

Thirsties has come out with a new trim fitting All-in-One. There's no elastic in the front which is great for boys like mine who manage to move male parts to overshoot the diaper.

Also check out No Nonsense. They sell socks, tights, and panty hose. They will also recycle them. Most of their stuff is USA made and labeled as such.

And finally frames (and lenses) made in the USA. I've been looking into it since I've had these frames for several years now (made in China of course) and the paint is chipping. So I contacted the company Shuron to locate a seller in my area. Unfortunately there isn't one, but I received this extremely helpful response.

Thank you for the interest in our frames.

We do not have any stores in your area that stock our frames. Sorry about this.

To help you out, we can send any frame(s). Most frames (new, top quality with full warranty) from us directly with regular temples (pieces that go behind the ear) are $95. Most frames with the wrap around cable temples are $115. The frames with the jewelling are $110. FedEx 2-day shipping is $12.95. Payment is via Visa or MasterCard. If you do not know your size/style/color, we can send 3-4 varying frames, only charge for one frame plus one shipping charge, let you try on the frames to evaluate and trust you to return any/all frames. There is no obligation. All is refundable except shipping.

We handle all types of lenses as well. The price is based upon your prescription
values, if any, and what features you would like. For a quote, please email your values.

If you go with the trial, after you receive the frames you can.......

- Request lenses. We start with another frame just like the one you select. We do not have to wait for any frames to be returned to begin lenses. After you receive the completed order, please return the trial frames.
- Keep none and please return the trial frames for refund less shipping.
- Keep the one you like and please return the other trial frames. We would be even.
- Request another frame/size. Shipping charges would apply.

To return frames, regular mail is fine. We recommend delivery confirmation.

To order we would need to know - do you consider yourself to be average
size, smaller or larger? If you currently wear glasses, are there any
numerical markings on them? If no markings, what is the total width and height of your current frames when you measure with a ruler? Which color(s)? Then - Visa or MC # with the expiration date and the billing/shipping addresses. You can email the info. or call
800-242-3636 Monday-Friday 9-5 Eastern time. Our secure location for sending credit info. is https://secure.shuron.com/contact.htm . The entire form is secure and the info. can be entered in the "Comments" section.

Regards,

Peter

On Kids

2012-01-20T22:10:00.000-08:00

So we had a drs appointment on Monday. HB is turning two in about a week or so. He's in the 20th percentile in weight (25 pounds) and 45 in height. His brother is a chunky monkey. He's over 11 lbs and in the 90th percentile for weight.

HB is obsessed with letters. He's not quite two and he sings the ABC song all day long to himself. And he's been identifying letter. Yesterday, he brushed my hair aside (it's very long these days I plan on donating it soon) because he noticed the word "STAFF" printed on this old work t-shirt that I was wearing. And he identified every stinking letter on it. I didn't even have to prompt him to find a letter. He knew what they were. Today, he got ahold of a Pyrex lid that has the name stamped into it. He identified two letters before tossing it aside: P and R. Now he can't identify every letter; some aren't that common. But he identifies most letters.

His brother is my mellow child. I can usually set him down long enough to change HB's diaper or throw something in the oven before the wailing starts. And he never cries once he's in someone's arms unless he's really really hungry which is rare. Unlike HB is obvious when he's getting hungry. HB was my high needs kid. His godmother said whenever his eyes were open so was his mouth. He had to be swaddled constantly. He's still a little high needs at times. And truth be told I thought all infants were wailers until I met Knee who just goes to show you that most infants aren't like that.

And this brings me to my next thing. So I've been reading two very gut wrenching articles one from Calah and one from Cam. Calah is raw. She talks about resenting her family. I don't share her feelings but I understand where she is coming from. Being a parent and giving up your selfishness is really really dang hard. (BTW she said she was being selfish so I'm not saying that she is selfish because I don't know her to make any judgement as to her character before children or after) I can't really relate to the whole children thing. I've always wanted children. To me having children and sacrificing self was to be expected. I worked with children my whole life. Having my own was just the final step in that.

But I can relate to selfishness on a different level. I think Cinderella ate me. Oh, I'm realistic about children, but I'm still working out the realities of marriage. I was looking for a kind gentle husband who on Saturday's would bring me breakfast in bed, who would notice when I was frazzled and step in, who would occasional run me a hot bath and force me into it. The reality is that my husband, while a very loving person, is not very perceptive or observant. I have to tell him that I'm frazzled and ask for his help. He doesn't seem to catch that I am frazzled. And talking to him about it, I realize that it's not that he's mean or anything it's just him. He would run me a bath but he doesn't think to it from time to time. Or he thinks about these things but the timing is all wrong and he simply forgets about it later. That's Hubby for you.

So I've had to learn to tell him things like I haven't brushed my teeth in four days because I haven't the time and when I have the time my oldest screams his head off at me while brushing my teeth and it's just too stressful. I cave and would rather deal with shrieking about his brother being fed or his diaper being changed. I would rather him get upset about things/luxuries others receive than to have him mad at me for "indulging" myself by brushing my teeth. Did I mention that I live with a high needs toddler? Death to self meant death to my child. Death to self meant my knight was supposed to rescue me. But I've mentioned the lack of hygiene so many times that you would think Hubby would remember to let me brush my teeth in peace. But that hasn't happened yet and I don't think it will. Unless I yell about it.

Does this mean my husband is a mean man or a dunce? No. He's just a normal person. And I have to get over it. Instead I can lavish him with romantic messages on the bathroom mirror and put on slow jazz to dance to for Valentine's Day and make him rice crispy treats just because. Or I can be resentful and not do any of those things because he never does those type of things for me. Is it disappointing? You bet you. Am I upset about it? Sure, I've cried about it.

But it's like Calah said you can resent it or you can grow from it.

Cam's article was dealing with an Anonymous blogger who in the midst of trying to mean well said a bunch of hurtful things like that Cam was in a hurry to have a ton of children or that children were trophies. I've heard of trophy wives and living through our children vicariously, but really. I never got that impression at all. So I don't know where the blogger got that idea.

I know what trophy children look like. Their parents are usually referred to as helicopter parents, parents that hover around their children and over schedule them. I don't always agree with George Carlin, but in one of his skits he addresses this issue head on. He basically asked the question to children even know what a stick is or how to play with one. It's sad, but true that there are parents out there like that. Cam doesn't strike me as the person who wouldn't let her children dig in the dirt with sticks.

The only thing I would worry about with Cam, if I had to tell my Anonymous blogger person, is that she worried me half to death trying to work and stuff while needing bed rest. That's it. She sacrificed herself a little too much, but who am I to talk. I finally after four days realized that I needed to brush my teeth before they rotted in my head. Sometimes death to our children gets a little out of hand and we need someone to rescue us from it. And Cam has a husband whom I'm sure did a good job of making her lay on the couch.

But I should go to bed. I'm loosing too much sleep over the whole dang thing that it's not worth. Sacrificing myself to the blog....well, that ain't gonna happen. It's not even on the list of priorities.

Liar, Liar, Take Two

2012-01-17T11:34:00.000-08:00

Okay. You already know about my big problem with lying to medical people. I admit it. I hate getting into it with doctor's who talk to you sternly about things like loosing a few pounds (which I haven't had the pleasure of dealing with as of yet) but you look them over and wonder why in their equally portly state they aren't doing the same. So perhaps I haven't the room to talk.

I mean I've already talked about the lying receptionist (okay maybe misleading) at my new church. You know she told me that I had to attend some sort of thing in order to register with the parish, which was phony baloney. I sent in the form with a letter and now get parish envelopes. Never went to their "come meet us" thing.

Now I'm in dispute with my phone company. I'm having a little problem with their internet page (I think I might have mentioned it too. Don't remember). And I wanted to tell them to turn off auto payment. I tried several times. I mean I turned auto pay on via internet. Anyway they sent it out and got a return check and are trying to charge me for it (lots more to explain about that but I'll discuss it later when I finally talk to a supervisor). The lady who took my call tried to tell me that the only way to turn auto pay off was through the phone. Liar, liar you're pants are on fire. I can see (even on their messed up site) that that's false. You can stop auto pay over the internet. I plan on informing her supervisor that she lied to me. Why do people do that? Do they think I'm stupid or something? Yes, it's ten bucks. But it's my ten bucks and it's the principal of the thing. I tried to stop it and their site doesn't work right. I made an effort. As far as I knew, I didn't need to contact anyone through the phone. I set it up over the computer. But it doesn't matter right? She lied to me. And you shouldn't lie to customers. Especially not ones who for seven years used their service and paid every dang bill on time. May I remind them that I use their competitors internet and can easily switch phone services.

Oh, and Michelle Foley, whoever you are. Please pay your outstanding bill. Your debt collector keeps calling me and last time I looked my name isn't Michelle or Foley. Thanks.

Ahh!!

2012-01-12T21:56:00.000-08:00

I've been working on posts for the other blog that I write for. Here's my column on breastfeeding. Please note that not all the articles are mine.

Anyways...I was looking up pictures for my next article on pumps and came across this image. The caption claims that this is what single dads do. Supposedly that's a man in the picture breastfeeding. I've heard of that happening before, but never actually believed that it was possible. I'm not sure if the image is real or not, but it's definitely breastfeeding fodder.

Here's a few articles on the topic: BabyCenter and Scientific American

Would Hubby like to try? (I seriously doubt it.) Although I suppose if either one of my boys gets upset, I can tell them under extreme circumstances they can make milk like mommy too. (Although I seriously doubt that they would want to. I mean this whole extended nursing thing creates its own silly stereotyping and potential for bullying).

Perhaps I've got an idea for a crazy new breastfeeding article for the other blog. Thoughts?

What do pre-marital sex and drug addition have in common?

2012-01-10T19:00:00.000-08:00

A couple of nights ago, Hubby and I were watching an old episode of Star Trek. In it Data talks about his "first time" with deceased Lt. Yar. Hubby mentioned something about how everyone remembers there "first time" no matter how strange (as was in the case of a previous episode). Then he divulged how one of his friend's "first times" was a one night stand and that even his friend remembers it well despite not even knowing the girl's name and simultaneously was drunk. I only mention this not as a judgement of the friend's actions, but rather to explain why this conversation came up. Because sitting in my lap was a small infant boy, who I leaned over and rather emphatically told that that was the totally dumb and never ever lose your virginity in that manner.

I also recently read an article from Little Catholic Bubble's Leah discussing sex education. In it she tackles a sex educator and basically blasts her out of the water for teaching "safe sex" along with abstinence. Her point was that we need to hold kids to a higher standard and I agree with her.

There are many among us who didn't wait. And Hubby's of the opinion that we should teach our children along the same lines as our misguided sex educator. "Well, if they're going to do it. They should be responsible."

I totally disagree. Here's why:

If you ask a sober former drunk or drug addict how they would talk about drugs with their children, they would automatically tell their child not to even try drugs. I don't imagine in their language would they say "Well, dear, drugs are bad for you. But if your going to shoot up, please use a clean needle." No. They would talk about the damage it caused their life. They would talk about why it's not even worth it. It wouldn't make sense for them to discuss being sensible about it if they are going to do it. A drug addict would hold their children to a higher standard. They would expect that because their children know what drug addiction looks like and how hard remaining sober is that their children wouldn't even try drugs in the first place.

The same can be said of anyone whose committed sexual sin, if they really stop and give pause to the damage it's done to their life. I can't imagine this friend discussing sex with their child and saying that his first time was great and that if he had it to do over, it would be the same. No. I imagine he would have rather had been in at least a meaningful relationship instead of a one-night-stand. And I feel pain for him for having to explain why it was a mistake to his children.

But I hope that he doesn't turn around and say "Well, if you're going to do it anyway use protection." Which seems to be the norm in this society. We look at our sexual transgressions and know that they were harmful to us, yet we can't seem to expect our children to do better. Unlike our sober drug addict.

I hope you get the point that I'm trying to make here. It doesn't matter if you were married when you first had sex or you were in a relationship or you had a one-night stand. Children need to learn that the only meaningful sex is in a marriage and they also need to know that that's really the only acceptable path. Sex outside of marriage is damaging just like drugs are. It's just that sex outside of marriage is more emotional damaging than people are willing to acknowledge.

My Shirts Have Shrunk

2012-01-08T14:19:00.000-08:00

Oh, the inevitable has occured. I've raided my pre-pregnancy clothes hoping that they would fit. And they do sorta, although I still prefer my pjs because they are looser and I'm still rather itchy. The hives are slowly subsiding but get worse when wearing something more form fitting or when I'm hot.

I've tried on a few of my nursing tanks and they somewhat fit. They sorta shrunk at the top. More of me is spilling over than ever before. I'm sure you've picked it up by now. The shirts didn't shrink and it's not that I haven't gotten back to a reasonable size. It's more like my cup spillith over. Okay, I'll be more blunt than that. I look like a stripper. I look like a short brunette Barbie doll with a normal sized waist-line. I'm starting to look like I raided Madonna's cone-shaped top wardrobe from the 90s. That nursing momma who donned that million dollar bra at the Victoria's secret Fashion Show has got nothin' on me. I look like I went and had a visit with a plastic surgeon. Get the picture? I'm rather enjoying these not so subtle metaphors.

But anyway...it's the price you pay. I used to be a B cup now I'm looking more like a double DD. I blame it on my kids. :)

Other than that we've had some interesting developments. My mother-in-law aka Grammie came the picture of health all charged up to do the most favorite thing that she loves to do, cook, and left miserably coughing with a cold more interested in getting us take-out. I felt so bad for her.

We also had an issue with our car battery. Apparently a person, who shall remain nameless, forgot to turn the reading light off and the battery died. But we decided to replace it anyway since it dies every two years or so. Said nameless person decided to replace it himself amid much consternation and cursing. At least he didn't miss work.

And Hubby thinks that Knee (that's my youngest's nickname from his older sibling) has a sinus infection now. He's insisting that the congestion is too much and thinks another pedi trip should be had soon. Poor Knee and his yeast infection is just now clearing up. It's so not cool to spend most of your young life battling things.

And I've pulled out the 0-3 month clothing which I'm sure fits really well now. I've been a strung out junky from fatigue and haven't felt up to it. But it's time we establish a family routine and get used to it. At least Knee is sleeping 3 hours at a time.

Oh, thought this was funny. And you think jail is tough. Try giving up all wordly pleasures. Surely there's another joke hidden in this story somewhere.

How Funny!

2012-01-02T16:19:00.000-08:00

Still itching. The doctor's not in until tomorrow, but that's okay. I'll live. I've been making intercessory prayers to Fr. Damien figuring he's probably close enough to a patron saint of skin issues. Plus I just like him. I thought about naming one of my children Damien, but then I've read that people think of "demon" when they hear it. Damien was a gentle man, but not many people outside Catholic circles know anything about him.

Anyways. finally used the Saint Name Generator to get my blog's patron saint for the year. Tiffany's going to love this one....it's Bl. Kateri. So glad she's going to be a saint soon (well she is but canonized as one I mean). And she got attacked by small pox (another skin disease) so I'll pray hard to her too.

Itchy, Itchy

2011-12-31T19:22:00.000-08:00

So my week has been...interesting. We've pretty much gotten over the colds. I didn't get it, but well...that will come to bite me later. Brothie has a new nickname from his brother who is both attempting to sign and say his name. It's Knee. I don't know why, but that's what he's saying. Brothie has also gained back his birth weight and then some.

I've been pumping every morning mass quantities considering I couldn't pump more than an ounce or two with HB. It's beautiful and well timed...

So Brothie has a yeast infection :( although it doesn't seem to bother him. We've had to stop using cloth and go back to paper diapers because of the cream. The directions specifically say to stop using "plastic pants" the old fashioned wording for cloth diapers.

Then I started breaking out into hives. Yes, hives. I itch everywhere...I went to the doctor yesterday who gave me a steroid. And I specifically asked him and the pharmacist about it's affect on breastfeeding and they said it does pass through but shouldn't hurt Brothie. So I took it this morning....later on Brothie cried out in pain for a few hours. So I pulled out the pumped stuff and we've been feeding that to him. Tomorrow it should be out of my system (and probably tonight even because the itching has returned) and then I'll wait til Monday to see if there's something else. Incidentally it doesn't affect HB whatsoever who has reveled in my allowing him to relieve me.

The doctor thinks its an allergic reaction (and no, I haven't switched shampoos/soaps/laundry detergents/etc etc it's something not obvious to me). He said that this steroid should get to go away permanently but if not then they will order an allergy test panel (oh, joy. pin pricks galore). He also tested me for valley fever, which is common in Tucson and starts out as itching, but didn't think it was that.

So tonight my MIL, hubby, and I drank beer for the New Year (my MIL is here helping out since Hubby returned to work this week). And I took a fantastic dip in colloidal oatmeal. I'm still itching but I love the smell anyway. I would take a benadryl (which helps too) but the beer needs to wear off first.

Hope your New Year is considerably less itchy than ours.

sicky, sicky

2011-12-23T05:22:00.000-08:00

everyone here has a cold including the baby. suck. I think that I'm getting it too. and so I drown myself in tears due to lack of sleep until God delivers that famous one-two punch: blessings and guilt. So here's my list of blessings for the week.

1) I died and went to Pei Wei heaven- Our meals have been rolling in from the church group and one lady didn't have time to cook so she got take-out. "Is that okay?" Is that okay? Of course it is! She bought us three meals, spring rolls, two huge cookies, and....and crab ragoon. I died and went to Pei Wei heaven. And even though we are tired and too poor for anything but panda express's two entree dinner with our extra free entree because we took the survey- shared amongst the three of us, we are grateful.

2) Special thanks to our next meal which was an Italian dinner with salad, garlic bread, and homemade desserts

3) My youngest's godmother (we were able to work that dilemma out amicably so now its one of my friends) sent us warm clothing for the kids (didn't forget my eldest either) from a children's place. had perfect timing since sleep deprived me was going through a melt down when ups showed up. love that woman.

4) sleep- after not being able to handle it any more, hubby ran and got some formula because pumping is abysmal and let me sleep from ten to five.

5) after glorious sleep I pumped out six wonderful ounces (the most ever) and fed the baby who spit up a lot on me. the nurse told us to limit his sessions and keep him upright for a while afterwards. guess I shouldn't have offered the other breast. froze some in case I need more sleep later. love hubby.

6) and he's covered in snot. but no fever and as long as we use a squeegy (bulb thingy) periodically he breathes fine. Otherwise we'd be making trips to the er. so far so good.

Happy Chanukah

2011-12-21T12:32:00.000-08:00

Happy Chanukah! We celebrate it here because Jesus did (see shameless popery's explanation about jewish/catholic connection). I want to wish it to my father's best friend and family. They are Jews. And every year they wish us a Merry Christmas.

Special thanks to Abigail for the annual Maccabeats reminder. Oh, and hey. Consider donating to their fund to help with bone marrow transplants. That's what the song below is also about: finding one miracle match.

Currently...

2011-12-20T20:00:00.000-08:00

What's going on now? HB has a cold so we're having to keep the brothers at safe distances (did some tandem nursing before he showed symptoms yesterday). Having to wash our hands and change shirts between handing children. Slowly getting through errands. Probably not going to go to Christmas Mass (major bummer) because I know it will be packed and am afraid of Brothie (pronounced Bru-thee, rhymes with Lovie) getting sick especially since HB already is.

Have had some baby blues but nothing like the PPD I had last time. I've realized that when I need to eat really makes a difference on my disposition. I tend to get stressed and cry a bit when I'm hungry.

Have had some engorgement. Plan on using a pump soon. Also hope to get Hubby to take over a feeding so I can get some extra sleep.

Brothie's disposition totally different. He's more content. Has normal sleep, alert, drowsy cycles. Unlike HB lets me put him down and use the bathroom. Doesn't cry very much at all. So we've been able to put him in the swing thus giving me a little break. Figure as soon as Hubby cleans up the bassinet (there's a lot of things we should have done ahead of time but didn't. Oh well), we can use it for part of the time too especially since bending to strap Brothie in is a little rough on my back.

Have hip issues as my joints go back in place. Pulled a ton of muscles. Realize now that I need to lift my arms and stretch them out periodically or they lock up and I can't lift them above my head. And naturally my bottom parts are sore.

Those frozen meals have given Hubby a lot more time to wash and clean stuff. We've switched over to cloth yesterday after Brothie's poo turned bf consitancy and he started peeing on me (the boy pees a ton). At pedi's office, he peed through my skirt and on the floor. Love cloth. No more leakage.

Overall very happy and thrilled and love my family lots.

birth story

2011-12-20T19:54:00.000-08:00

I apologize if my typing is off since I'm typing one handed. So you know the beginning of the story and we'll start where I left off.

7:00 am- call midwife/ob, ob answers page and says to eat a big breakfast and call family for HB touch base in an hour

7 ish- Hubby feeds HB gets him ready and drops him off, I labor on couch by self for about 20 minutes

8:00- call ob who asks if want to come in, I say not sure, speak to midwife who says go ahead

9:00- get to birthing center, immediately hop in huge birthing pool which only has cold water in it because there is another lady (who arrived at 7 am) next door and feel so much better they add hot boiled hot water later

9:00 ish- midwife pushes through two doses of antibiotics in a small iv through my hand for about half an hour (I was Strep B positive and elected to do this rather than retest)

Labor the rest of the time, while they feed me and keep me hydrated (minus IV which they took out after done)

11:30- Hubby goes and gets lunch

around 12:00- labor becomes more intense even in pool of warm water (which made labor like nothing), Hubby comes back and scarfs sandwich, midwife suggests checking me, I think I'm now in active labor, she says more like close to transition, tells us could be one more contraction could be two hours before baby is born

12:30- transition really happening, I get no relief between contractions, start crying and screaming too (poor lady next door), suddenly shift into pushing feels like I'm giving birth to a pineapple and things burn, but I get relief between each contraction where the midwife's assistance talks me down to relaxing state, At this point I start contemplating drugs but remember that it's a little late in the game for that so I decide to suck it up and just push at each contraction (the things that get people through pain) transition was way worse than pushing because all the contractions just kept coming at once

midwife in tub with me going in blind (blood in tub) water breaks during pushing,

12:58- Baby pushed out, at this point told to turn around, I had been laboring most of the time on my knees and using my arms to rest between contractions on side of tub, the midwife was behind me

And there he was...I didn't really recognize him as being mine. Let me explain. HB looks like Hubby. He looked like Hubby when he was born. Hubby's family nose, blond peach fuzz mostly bald hair. This baby doesn't remotely look like that so I was a little confused at first because that's what I figured I'd get (more of the same). But then it took a minute for me to realize why he didn't look like HB or Hubby because who I was looking at was well....the male version of me. Brown full head of hair and small nose. I guess the person I couldn't really recognize was me. Make sense?

Anyways...hands him over to me (after Hubby said he took an accidental dip in the water as the midwife was trying to stand up). They then lift me over the side of the tub to deliver the placenta which took a couple of contractions so she went ahead and tied off the chord early.

Then she later retied off the chord so the stump was shorter and stitched me up.

Would I do a birth center birth again? Hell, yes!!! I feel so much better. No crazy monitors going all the time. Got to eat so my blood sugar was stable. With HB is was a full 24 hours without food. Low lighting. Always someone in the room with me even when Hubby went and got lunch. Always someone helping me to the toilet. So I felt so much better without all the adrenaline. Got to go home and be with HB soon after.

The after affects continue. No swelling. Apparently they use too many IV fluids during hospital stuff and so I swelled real bad. Nothing like that now. Less lochia (don't know why). Only one stitch from small tear as opposed to episitomy that was given without my consent. I'm having to slow myself down because I know that I need to really heal, but I don't hurt as much as last time. I also feel better since I'm not pregnant anymore. I have a lot more will power.

It's a boy!

2011-12-16T15:55:00.000-08:00

Had the baby at 12:58 pm. Weight: 8 lbs 10 oz. Height: 21 in. Name: SLW aka "Brothie." Mom and baby doing great, will be going home soon.

-Hubby

Good Mornin'!

2011-12-16T05:40:00.000-08:00

So some time early this morning I woke up, as usual, with light cramps. I decided that rather than staring at the ceiling I was going to do something about this. I drank some water and started tweaking my nipples (per recommendation). At first the cramps became more intense and wave like until real early labor started, which is what I'm experiencing now.

I waited....waited...waited...through several contractions simply laying down waiting for them to become more intense. And then around 6, I woke Hubby up and told him to make himself some coffee. "Why? What? I already set the alarm for 6:30." "Well that doesn't matter because I'm in labor." "Oh, you are?" Which ensued a brief dialogue about how all it was was early labor because obviously I can type and talk through it all.

I did use the restroom and discovered more of my disintegrating mucus plug along with a thin pink tinge. :) So things are progressing slowly. We haven't woke anybody up yet. Haven't called whoever is on call. Haven't called the family for HB. Haven't even got HB up yet.

Tried to eat some breakfast but I don't do breakfast well in the first place.

Oh, and please don't call us. Obviously we have a lot of people to get a hold of (one minute okay sorry about that sitting is most uncomfortable). We promise to call you. You may commence with informing other people.

Who knows...this thing probably won't progress quickly (no broken waters yet) or it may stall. So anyways....should start walking. Apparently walking helps labor progress.

And in case your interested, Hubby was born on a Friday. I was born on a Friday. And yes, HB was born on a Friday. Hubby in the morning, me mid-afternoon, HB around 5:30pm. Not that I'm superstitious or anything.

Usul, we have the biggest wormsign....

2011-12-14T20:16:00.000-08:00

the likes of which God has never seen. ~ Dune

So I figured I should talk about a couple of the prelim signs of things.

1) Contractions- I'm not sure these are exactly Braxton-Hicks contractions. They are uncomfortable and cause me to have to stop a moment for what I am doing. They are however irregular and hours apart. I usually get about 4 to 6 a day that I notice. Then throw in those occasional contractions where only one part of my uterus contracts.

2) Headaches- I'm a migraine sufferer (it's genetic, nothing I can really do for it). And as such I can feel very strongly any chemical changes in my brain. Every time I get an upsurge of hormones (usually in the evening) I can feel it. It's not like a migraine; it just feels weird. I had that occur at least three times so far (including tonight).

Please don't read further if you get queazy.

3) Mucus- Hubby laughed at me this evening. Not having my water break or the mucus plug fall out or the bloody show. But here I was going to use the toilet and noticed instead of the very watery vaginal fluid, I had instead the very slimy (usually good for baby making) cervical fluid. To which I squished and stretched around between my fingers in utter amazement. That's why he was laughing at me. What does this mean? Well for those of you who chart this usually means that your cervix is opening up and prepping for ovulation. For those like me who are awaiting labor, it just means my cervix is dilating some more.

Update: Apparently having the mucus is having the mucus plug fall out in pieces. I should have looked into that more. According to many sources, this means labor is within hours (although apparently not in my case), days, or weeks (which I've only got days so...). Like I said this weekend, maybe.

So my thoughts: I give it a couple of more days. My irregular contractions started last Saturday and some say this happens a week before active labor begins. Of which I'm sure I'll totally gross you out with all the "gory" details. :)

Again, I'll quote "Usul, we have the biggest wormsign the likes of which God has never seen." Although you can substitute friends, family, etc with Usul, God with me, and wormsign with laborsign.

What I'm Thankful For

2011-12-13T19:09:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I know. It's not Thanksgiving, but rather than typing another post lamenting my lack of labor pains (if one can lament that truthfully), I thought that I would focus on the good things about this pregnancy. As usual, in no particular order...

1) I am thankful for sonogram technology. I've seen a sonogram of myself and couldn't see anything but a small white smudge in a vastness of black. Today's sonograms give great detail (even in 3d imaging). And it's nice that they can measure the baby to help narrow the window of EDD (estimated due date), which they really couldn't do back in the day. They also can detect any problem in utero and be prepared for any necessary actions (like surgery shortly after birth or early induction or c-section).

2) I am thankful that both my children are healthy. I've luckily had no complications. Now if we could get one of them's sleep-wake cycles on par with the families, we're good to go.

3) I am thankful that I've never had to deal with breach. This baby and his older brother were/are head down and hang out on the left side. The left side has to do with how his head will fit through my pelvis. If he hangs out on the right, I'd have nasty back labor pain.

4) I am thankful for learning about how to deal with nutrition better. My ob was particularly bad and only interested in medicating my nausea. This time I'm more educated.

5) I am thankful for my own health. Sounds crazy given the pain and nausea, but I haven't had to deal with pre-eclampsia or gestational diabetes or low iron.

6) I am thankful for giving birth at a birth center with people I know who will actually support me. I knew I was in trouble when the nurses asked me if I could unplug myself from the machines to go to the bathroom. Where's the love? I also saw my ob a total of 3 times during labor including when she actually delivered HB. Whoever is on call this time will be there for the large majority of the time. I will have a small IV only for antibiotics (because I tested Strep B positive again) which they will take out and no machines (no monitors). And theoretically Hubby will be there (he was ill last time).

7) I am thankful for the large tub at the birth center. At the hospital, I was assigned to a room with a shower, which didn't matter anyway because with all the equipment I couldn't use. This time I will be allowed to soak and give birth in water if that's what's most comfortable. Yeah, I did say water birth as in hippy dippy (my mother's terms) water birth. This makes since to me since I started swimming when I was 9 months old and love water.

8) I am thankful for the ability and knowledge of breastfeeding. My mother has a tendency to forewarn me in such a way that I get nervous and agitated (instead of feel supported). But the jokes on her :P because I'm one of the few people who is breastfeeding a toddler. That's right, Mom. You were wrong. (I'm saying this all tongue in cheek of course. My MIL only breastfed up to three months so neither one could offer up much in the way of advice beyond the initial.) And I will also tandem nurse. Crazy still? Although my knowledge of how that will go is limited. But I know someone who's done that before. My midwife. But I will say that my Mom is awesome. She bought me a breast pump for Christmas. So have I converted her? :) Mom, are you now an ardent supporter of the boobies?

Speaking of the boobies, I've been reading the Nativity story to HB (kid's version from books) and when we get to the part about swaddling clothes, I always tell HB that that means a diaper and then add the part of Momma Mary feeding the Baby Jesus boobie. While it's not there in the text, one can imply that Jesus had a boobie shortly after his birth. I mean that's what we do now right?

9) I am thankful for learning that babies are snugglers. I've already told Hubby that he's taking the couch again and me and the Bro are going to bed share the big bed. I'm not crazy to try that sleeping on his own again. He can do that for naps.

10) I am thankful for VBACs and lowering incidence of c-sections. I had a friend who had a nearly 11 lb baby without drugs at a birth center on post day 11. My mother was coerced into a c-section because I was "too big" (over 9 lbs). Unless there is some underlining major reason to have a c-section, anyone who suggests one will get the finger. Who wants to deal with recovery from major surgery? Not me. No thank you.

11) I am thankful for the crazy irregular contractions and cramps. They didn't happen last time around. But I know this time my body is heading into that labor direction. I also know that my body knows what it's doing. There's something cathartic knowing that your body is working the way it should instead of being hooked up to a machine with synthetic labor inducing drugs regulated by a nurse. I know whatever happens fast or slow it's the way it's supposed to be. And that's a comforting thought.

12) I am thankful for not using pain meds. Oh, I know what some may be saying to themselves. Are you crazy? Yes. Labor pains are not the same as any other pain. I should know having been told that at age 3 I would die. Labor feels nothing like that. It's a pain that's good because it's a working pain. That's the only way I can describe it. You work with it and through it and then it's over. It's not like being sick. And pain meds that numb you make pushing out the baby harder. I want to feel that (however horrible). Being numb sucked. Try going to the bathroom or knowing when you needed to empty your bladder. Yeah, thanks but no thanks. Unless I'm just too tired to carry on, "no pain medication will be administered into the female's body" to quote Bill Cosby.

I'm sure that I could keep going on, but I think this is already a lengthy list anyway.

Anything Yet?

2011-12-12T11:54:00.000-08:00

Nope, nothin'. I've had a few preliminary contractions yesterday but nothing to write home about. Went to the birthcenter for a check up. Nothing to write home about that either. The ob is confident that I should go into labor before the weeks out (although we made all the necessary appointments and got the info for the fetal monitoring which they make you do at 41 weeks). The midwife from last weeks appointment forewarned me that it may mean that I go all 42 weeks and end up as a hospital induction.

As Hubby says he likes the midwife better. "She's definitely cooky, but I don't know, the ob seems fake."

In case you're confused, the ob and the midwife are two different people that own the one birth center. They tag team all their clients since they switch off who's on call. Which is why one week I visit the midwife and the other other the ob. The ob is an ob, a medically trained obstetrician doctor. The midwife is a licensed midwife (LM). She's been a midwife for a long time. Every time I mention the midwife's name, people know who I'm talking about. Mention the ob, and they give me a blank stare. I think the ob got into holistic birthing later in the game.

So usually Hubby and I smile and nod at the ob and take what she says in stride. Not that she's horrible or anything, I think she's just working through her own garbage (judging by the conversations we've had). The midwife has 10 kids (yes, 10) so she's the one I listen too especially when she says having two changes things.

The Things that People Don't Get

2011-12-10T20:23:00.001-08:00

1) Yoga and meditation are evil and anti-Catholic.
I'm not sure where people get this idea from. I've seen a number of articles recently from priests saying something to the affect that the Vatican should put the kabosh on yoga. It stems from the idea that practicing yoga or meditation is practicing Buddaism or Hinduism. While yoga has it's origins in these religions, the way the western world typically uses yoga is for health or exercise.

Let me look at it from another angle. Most martial arts like karate or taekwando also have meditation or philosophy associated with them. However, the larger purpose of martial arts is for self-defense or again, health and exercise. Yet, I don't hear any priests (unless I'm totally mistaken) saying anything about how it's detrimental for Catholics to learn taekwando.

That's why I don't understand what's wrong with practicing yoga positions or breathing techniques.

But what really gets my gourd is the mention that the reason yoga is also bad is because of meditation. It begs the question about what contemplative prayer or mental prayer is exactly if not a form of meditation. So yes, let's get rid of meditation and in that same vein we should never pray the Rosary (because it also involves contemplation) or think over our sins (because that's using our brain too) or strike Teresa of Avila from our lists of saints (because well she's the one who made meditation all groovy). I'd hate to think that meditation is too eastern and dabbling in eastern religion.

2) Christians who don't except the homosexual lifestyle are only bullies.
As someone pointed out there's this mindset now that you're one of two ways: either as a Christian who doesn't accept homosexuality you believe that bullying is okay or as a Christian who thinks bullying is wrong you must also accept homosexuality. I don't know about you but I'm perfectly okay saying I think the gay lifestyle is wrong. I also don't go pushing people into lockers or chanting nasty slogans or deface "family" photos either because that's wrong too. It doesn't have to be either or.

But I've seen that the reason why Christians are bigots are because they bully. An episode of Glee reminded me that the gay agenda feels like all Christians hate gay people.

I'm not a bigot. I'm not a bully. I don't hate gay people. Just because I don't agree with everything that people do in their lives doesn't make me hateful. Just look at the presidential campaigns. Hello, are all those for one side and against another also bigots, bullies, or haters (well some could be bullies)? It's silly reasoning.

And furthermore the whole notion that "once I get to know a few gay people I will change my mind" is obnoxious. I'm a musician. I know a lot of gay people and have a few gay friends. That doesn't mean that I approve.

My husband is worried that I will traumatize our children if one is gay. He/she is welcome to our house and welcome to eat food with us. But he/she is not welcome to bring their "partner" over for a sleep over. Nor while they are minor are they welcome to date a member of the same sex. And if you think that's biased, they may also not be able to date someone of the opposite sex. That one I'd have to seriously think about because it depends largely on my children's behavior, the other child's behavior, and if this is an exclusive thing. Yes, I'm a little over the top conservative, but I think some rules need to be laid down. Even my "no curfew" parents had rules about dating.

And there you have it.

Will I make it this week?

2011-12-10T16:58:00.001-08:00

I have my doubts that I have more than a week to go. According to some predictions, I should go into labor tonight. For one, tonight is a full moon and a lunar eclipse (which I believe I was admitted to the hospital for HB's birth on a lunar eclipse but that was of course a medically induced labor). Then there's the fact that I'm smack between two major feast days (Bl. Juan and Our Lady of Guadalupe) where ironically the icon of the BVM is shown standing on the moon. Coincidence? I also keep an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe above our couch. It's my favorite image because she's not depicted as a white European but rather more indigenous. And following those feast days is St. Lucy's feast day, where she is depicted with light.

All superstitious predictions aside. I have had three contractions in the last two days. All of them related to HB's breastfeeding. So my body is gearing up. Incidentally, breastfeeding does not cause premature labor (obviously). However, the medical community recommends based on research that if you want to get labor hormones started you should manipulate your nipples. My son could do that for hours. He thinks mine are meant to be tweaked (it's a habit from when he was little trying to get let down going).

Then there's all that pelvic pain and Little Brother's constant movements. Today I told HB to tell his brother that he was all done and it was time to come out. He signed all done and said bye. I figure the more encouragement Bro gets the more likely he'll join the rest of us on the outside.

Then of course, I'm using my mind or rather my contemplative techniques to imagine myself in labor. You'd think that was crazy but there has been research to suggest that women can induce labor that way too. I mean after all it's the hormones that get secreted in the brain that cause labor. So tonight, my goal is to sit comfortably and really get into the mind set of it. It was a bit hard to do today over the Backyardigans theme song and HB squeals. I should have a better go of it tonight.

My predictions: I probably won't go much past this week. But who knows. Superstition aside maybe it's tonight....

The Duggard's Miscarriage and Male Fertility

2011-12-09T17:39:00.001-08:00

I read some sad news yesterday about the Duggards' miscarriage of their 20th child at 24 weeks gestation. The media reports that the Duggards plan on naming the child and are preparing for burial.

I also read some nasty comments about the whole affair. People really have no heart. They range from things like "sew that B*****'s hole up" to "I don't care if they can support 19. Doesn't she realize what harm she's causing?" to "didn't she learn the last time" Yeah, no heart at all.

What I did notice in comment after comment was Michelle was the prime target. Everything fell on Michelle. It was Michelle's fault that her 19th child was in intensive care. It was Michelle's fault that she got pregnant again. It was Michelle who didn't learn her lesson. It was Michelle who needs to wise up.

To me this is just a reminder how far our world has come. Just like that commercial by Dodge and the comments that followed. People seem to put all fertility and child bearing solely on that of the woman. I don't understand this. It just isn't biologically possible for a woman to fertilize herself. So why isn't the man equally blamed?

Simple, I watched a news report back a while discussing the male version of the pill. The news did a simple poll asking how people felt about it and an overwhelming number of people including women felt that they could not trust a man to remember to take it. In other words, in our contraceptive mentality planet, fertility and reproductive responsibility is a woman thang. Men don't have to take responsibility. All they have to do is enjoy themselves and the rest is the woman's fault if she gets pregnant.

It's utterly irresponsible and distasteful. It's turning women into basically unpaid prostitutes. And if that wasn't bad enough, it's affecting the most innocent among us~ the unborn.

Along with the Duggards' bad news, I read a small piece about a PA veterinarian who murdered his mistress because she was pregnant. She was in her first trimester. Fortunately, the vet was convicted of two counts (yes two since we have laws that protect the unborn from unauthorized murder) of 1st degree murder. He's also married (hence the reason why she was his mistress and didn't want her to be pregnant). Not only was this man totally insane, but it begs the question, if he didn't want her to get pregnant why did he have sex with her? I realize that men don't spontaneously spawn children either, but obviously he didn't want to deal with the consequences of having an affair. Sorry, Mr. Vet, I would have thought by treating animals that you would have learned some basic biology. In other words, having sex leads to...babies!!!

Will people ever learn? Or are they trying to kid themselves that women are the sole bearers of fertility? It's simple really. If you don't want to have a baby, don't have sex. Even the Church says if married couples wish to abstain for whatever reason, they are free not to have sex. I think that's something they should be teaching kids in all those health classes. I think STD prevention is important, but what about fertility common sense?

Censorship: What does this mean for religious freedom?

2011-12-08T20:17:00.001-08:00

I mentioned before that Elizabeth Esther is trying to get her readers to sign a petition asking Amazon to essentially ban the Pearl's books. I won't get into that here. You can read her blog yourself. It has, however, sparked some thoughts of mine.

I'm not big into censorship. I believe that self censorship is perfectly fine or censoring what your children read in your own home. But over-all I don't believe in restricting access to information.

Now not all religious people would agree with me on this one. They feel that banning pornography or other types of harmful material is essential. They don't want access to it in their public libraries or other public institutions. And because they vote, they have the right to do so with their vote.

The problem is just like prayer in school, censorship can back fire. Once you open the door, where does it end? Some books like the Color Purple, for instance, have been banned because they are graphic. The Color Purple doesn't advocate violence or sexual assault. In fact by openly portraying it the way it does, the Color Purple exposes how heinous and criminal sexual assault is. It gives voice to those who have experienced it. As Jaycee Duggard so eloquently said about her experiences, the shame falls on the assaulter and should not be carried by the assailant. Yet, the book is banned and has been censored.

Of course, I'm speaking of a book that's been banned in the United States. What about other countries? There are numerous countries where the Bible is banned. Sometimes it's banned in the name of "detrimental harm" aka another religion; sometimes it's banned because it is religious material. I read the Pulp.it. I see at least one headline a day talking about religious freedom being squashed either abroad or here at home by the Obama administration.

So while I don't advocate someone traipsing down the video store and renting a porno, I certainly think on some level liberals need to get with the program on religious freedom and censorship. If you want that porno to be housed in your local video store, you should also allow people access to information about the Bible or the latest Christmas/Nativity Movie too. And it goes the other way too. Otherwise, we start looking like communist China and not "freedom of speech and freedom of religion" United States.

And that's all I'm sayin'.

Atheists and Agnostic Scientists Go to Mass

2011-12-08T19:56:00.001-08:00

There's a recent article talking about a study where one in five scientists who describe themselves as atheists or agnostics go to church. Why? Because they want to expose their children to religion so they can choose for themselves.

This describes Hubby to a T. He's not a believer but he has the background of one (unlike what the article describes). And he goes to Mass. Why? Well, it's not really because of me I assure you. He wouldn't come to Mass with me before kids. But he goes now. He thinks it's good that the kids decide for themselves what to believe.

This article spawned a conversation for us. His thinking is that the vast majority of non-believers are open to their children becoming religious or not religious, but in Hubby's view, this is not true of religious people. He stipulates that religious people "force" religion on their children.

Let me explain more. What he means is that religious people make their children go to church.

Okay. First of all, I don't believe anyone can force anyone to believe anything. You can take a horse to water but you can't make it drink. All any religious parent can do is pray, teach, guide, and trust. So no matter what I say, I can't "force" my children to believe anything.

Now the forcing going to church thing...I think if they are still minor and under my care and direction, they are going to church. Not because I'm forcing them to believe, but it is part of my job to educate. Even minors who may not want to go to school are still under obligation to do so. Therefore, this is the same for religious education and worship (which I consider a vital component to religious education). And if Hubby doesn't like it, well tough.

As for the forcing adult children to go to church....that I won't do and really can't do. This is akin to the most recent news of a club owner agreeing to help out two financially strapped adults if they agreed to follow his rules or else endure spanking. Yeah, that's correct. The man got two years in jail for assault because spanking adults is not cool (and neither is children but we won't argue that here). Suffices to say, you can't force an adult person like that.

In Hubby's view, what happens is that if a person is not religious and his/her parents are they will be ostracized from the family and that's wrong. I agree that it's not the right way of going about converting a soul. But Hubby thinks this is the normal route for religious people.

So here's my question in the form of a poll: If you are a religious person, would you disown your adult children if they were not religious?

And what are your thoughts about children who don't believe (by this I mean teenagers)? How would you handle it if your 15 year old told you they didn't believe in God?

Stuff

2011-12-08T11:56:00.001-08:00

So based on MK's predictions, the full moon is due one day before my due date. That would be Saturday. It would be nice, but I don't know...

EE (Elizabeth Esther) is calling for a petition to ask Amazon to remove the Pearl's books. I've seen petitions like this before over things like calling for a ban on books advocating pedophilia. And while I understand the intent is to protect the most vulnerable and innocent members of society, I am not an advocate for censorship. Knowledge is power. Knowing what evil lies are being told helps us combat the Dark One. I have mixed feelings about what one should expose themself too. Everyone knows how far reading something that awful can make them more vulnerable to his evil whispers. And everyone knows how it's important to stare down evil and not let it penetrate them. I've read Pullman's the Golden Compass series. I've also read the Ezzo's books. Why did I read that stuff? Because knowledge is power. Knowing what my children may be subjected to out in the real world is important. I don't want to shelter my children. I want to arm them and make them battle ready.

Of course some of EE's most cherished followers don't understand what censorship means because a few of them have already said that she's not calling for censorship. No, she's not advocating censorship on a government level. She is however asking one of the largest distributors of books to ban the books which is a form of censorship. Anytime a person asks for the written works to be removed they are calling for censorship. Censorship has become a dirty word in our lexicon associated with communism. But if you think about it, the Catholic Church has censored it's members, in the past, from exposing themselves to bad translations of the Bible. And the Catholic Church is not a government entity (although it has the Vatican). But whatever....people really need to think before they post.

Today is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. I went to Mass last night for the Vigil. I was reading the missal and I love that it was talking about us having to put more of our trust in God. There was a question that said along the lines of In what ways do we need to trust God in our lives? This hit me pretty hard as I'm anxiously waiting for labor to start. So alright, God, I'll be patient as best as I can.

But let's have a laugh, shall we? I love Colbert. I will warn you that he is a satirist so please, don't take him seriously.

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A Whole Lot of Nothing

2011-12-06T19:51:00.001-08:00

My kid's show post was scheduled for 6:30. I'm not sure of what time zone, but it should have posted so I had to so myself. I guess blogger's newest feature has a bug.

I intended it to post on its own because I wasn't sure about labor stuff. The labor stuff still remains a whole lot of nothing. The whole family is going nuts about it. Hubby told me that because I have a whole lotta energy today he thinks it's the start. But he says stuff like that all the time. Yesterday we hung out with the family whose going to be watching HB. I feel real comfortable around them because they have two older boys who are really conscience of any littles. At one point HB walked out of the play area and the five year old caught it and gently guided him back in. So I think it's the best fit ever.

While we were there, we also met a lady who also goes to the same parish. She's what I would describe as wearing your religion on your sleeve. Told me that someone had suggested to her to make the sign of the cross where the baby's head would be to help speed up the wait time. Now I realize that there are those who are big into that sort of thing, but it makes me a bit uncomfortable because it borders on superstition. I realize she meant well, but I don't know... She also said that there are a lot of feast days and her kids are all born on feast days. I think she meant major feast days because the entire calendar is filled with feast days, but I didn't get into it. It's not worth it. Her son, incidentally, has a middle name similar to HB's first name. In other words it's like a derivation; examples would be Edward and Edmund or Nathan and Nathaniel. It was pretty cool. Other than my grandfather, we've never met anyone with HB's name especially a young person. It's an old fashioned name. She was very sweet, but I always get worried/anxious around sweet people because I know that I could never live up to those standards. I'm mean and cantankerous. I grew up in an environment where women throw their weight around and so being around patient, angelic, composed people puts me on edge. Maybe that's why most of my friends are male. Guys can get away with being a little ornery and they don't seem to care if someone else is.

Also had a great day today. So much energy. And no idea where it's coming from. We colored a picture of St. Nicholas. I love the icono-color pages. We just did a simple one. He did, however, throw a fit when I removed the crayons after he started nibbling on the purple one. I think for the Immaculate Conception we'll use water color. He also got two books in his stocking: one was hymn about the animals at the Nativity and the other loosely followed the Bible all the way from the Annunciation to Epiphany. They were used Golden books printed in the US. Also he got an orange, which he's not really big into because of the white stuff. But it's traditional. An orange is supposed to represent money.

As far as our Christmas tree, I'm thinking HB can do some simple angel crafts for it. I don't think I want to pull out every stinking ornament so it'll be sparsh. I need to get out my lights for St. Lucy's feast day too. But who knows what's going to happen. We're just taking it one day at a time.

Also Hubby and I get into this discussion (and I think some friend's of mine too), but people really don't pay attention to lyrics. At least regular people that I know don't with popular music. Hubby was listening to his alternative and I can't remember what it was talking about only that it's not appropriate. So I asked him did he know what the song was about. Of course he said "no." So we talked about how now that HB sings we need to watch what we listen to while riding in the car. I did ask him why he likes that sort of thing if he knows the content is out there and he says he likes the music.

Sorry, Hubs and all you who don't pay that close attention, but the lyrics are a part of music. One of my friend's who was also the organist at my church emphatically refuses to play the Bridal Chorus by Wagner. Why? Well it's from the opera Lohengrin and actually in the opera is performed at the end of the wedding scene. It's talking about the bridal chamber and it's meant to also be sort of a farce since the marriage that took place is a total failure. There's also death and paganism thrown in there for good measure. So it's not really a good choice for a wedding. The Church allows it, but a lot of individual parishes put restrictions on its use.

Just to put a nail in the coffin about paying attention to lyrics here's another great article. Apparently Rupert Murdoch thinks a requiem, which is for a funeral, makes great wedding music too.

Anyways...I guess my point is. Pay close attention to what you are listening to. You may realize that it's a metaphor for something else. Like the night my husband sung some sort of song called Terra Cotta Pie and didn't realize it was a euphemism for vagina. Yeah, that one was not romantic or funny in the least. But Hubby thought it was a joke or something to do with roofing. Uh, no as HB says.

Veggie Tales St Nicholas and others: Get it wrong

2011-12-06T18:30:00.000-08:00

So I've talked a little about how Veggie Tales has some Catholic sympathies. One of the shows I've stumbled upon is a Veggie Take on the Lord of the Rings called the Lord of the Beans. We all know that Tolkien, the author of the Lord of the Rings, was a Catholic. They also have another Veggie Tale revering and telling the story of St. Nicholas. Unfortunately, they get their facts all wrong.

According to Bob, the Tomato who narrates the tale, St. Nicholas was grew in 3rd century Greece. The movie correctly says that his parents were devote Christians who died in the plague, but it has St. Nicholas wondering about from there out. St. Nicholas was then brought under the tutelage of his uncle, who is also named Nicholas and was a bishop.

There are a number of folklore legends about St. Nicholas's generosity. None of them have anything to do with fines or putting money down people's chimney's as the movie implies. He actually would put money through the window when he wanted to be anonymous.

The movie discusses very little to him being a Bishop, but does make allusions to him being the patron saint of sailors and fishermen.

I'm very disappointed in the Veggie Tales take on this great saint. With a little bit of research, they could have depicted his life a little closer to reality.

There's also the Veggie Tales Movie: Rumor Weed where at the very beginning the two peas are walking home from the movies are accosted by a bandit. One of the peas says "we're not supposed to talk to strangers" yet there is more dialogue that follows. But my beef is that if we teach our children not to talk to strangers and someone does accost them, wouldn't we want them to feel comfortable enough to go up to an adult stranger and ask for help? Really what they should be saying is that it's fine to talk to strangers, but it's not okay to go off anywhere with one. If you should say fall and get hurt riding on your bike and someone stops to help you, a child should learn to ask the stranger to go and find their mother. Thus you eliminate this "stranger danger" junk along with keeping your child safe. Most abductions are from people the child knows so really strangers can be the most helpful. I read a blog called Free-Range Kids and one of the commenters made the point that every child's parents were once strangers. So strangers are not scary and shouldn't be.

Then there's this tv show on some Evangelical station that we get. It's for kids but I remember they were talking about fear. One of the characters, who is an animated duck, made a flippant comment that they only thing he was afraid of was commitment. The show was talking about a fear of flying. I raised an eyebrow. Really? This is what Christians are wanting to teach their children? That it's perfectly normal for one of their parents to develop a fear of commitment and run off on their children. How about teaching kids to take responsibility? Or just eliminate the distasteful comment altogether. Needless to say we haven't been watching that station.

And then there's the PBS show Pocoyo narrated by Stephen Fry. My husband doesn't like it because during an episode they had a caterpillar eating a chair, which is completely unrealistic. I don't like it because during another episode Pocoyo, a little boy, gets into trouble by knocking down his friend's castle. Fry makes the sarcastic comment "Good show" or "Good job" or something to that affect. I about fell off the couch. This show is marketed twoards preschoolers. Pocoyo is age four. Children don't get sarcasm until middle school. First off all being sarcastic around children is completely rude. Secondly, they take you literally although judging by Pocoyo's face he realized that Fry was being sarcastic, which again is completely unrealistic for a four year old. I have to remind my own husband to reign in the sarcasm from time to time because it gives the wrong information.

But there you go...that's programming by adults to children. Obviously they don't have any education experts on staff to review their content.

Obedience, Children, and the Bible

2011-12-05T22:36:00.001-08:00

I've talked at length about how to raise children and why I'm not big into teaching obedience, but I didn't realize that I've never covered it as a topic within the Bible.

The Bible doesn't say to obey one's parents especially not in the strictest sense. Here's some of what I mean.

The Bible does talk about honoring your parents see (Ephesians 6:2 , Mark 7:10 , Exodus 20:12 ) . According to a few sources (since I've only got the internet for this which isn't as reliable), the Hebrew word used in multiple verses and in the 10 Commandments is "kabed" which means "to be heavy." In other words, honor is the more appropriate translation since honor means to give reverence or weight too. Obey means to comply or follow.

Then there are several instances listed in the Bible where Jesus talks about this topic specifically.
Matthew 19:17-19, Mark 10:17-19 have Jesus discussing the Commandments

In Luke 8:19-21, Jesus shows that his ministry is more important or weighty if you will. Here he says that those who follow him are his mother and brothers.

In Luke chapter 2, Jesus tells his parents who are frantically looking for him that he was in his Father's house doing his Father's business (Luke 2:49), which is an awful cheeky remark for a "obedient" youngster to make. Again it shows that his ministry is more important.

Faith to God above obedience to family is something that Jesus also applies to us.

In Matthew 10:21-22, Jesus warns that we will be hated even by our own family because we follow God. Thus obeying ones family members above Jesus's teachings is out.

Matthew 10:37-38 reiterates that. Here Jesus specifically says that if you love your parents or your children above God then you are not worthy.

So what can one conclude that Jesus intends that we honor and respect our parents but not blindly obey them. Our true obedience is owed to God. This is why I don't intend to teach my children to obey me, but rather to obey God because let's face it I have no idea what God's plans are and I'm a sinful person.

CCC 2215: Respect for parents (filial piety) derives from gratitude toward those who, by the gift of life, their love and their work, have brought their children into the world and enabled them to grow in stature, wisdom, and grace.

Spanking Revisited

2011-12-03T12:37:00.001-08:00

Go to Elizabeth Esther's blog to read about her interview with Anderson Cooper (which aired yesterday for most people) in which she talks about the Pearl's methods as being cold, calculating, and abusive.

Unfortunately, as Elizabeth said a number of commentors/supporters of the Pearls are already reeling about the interview. It's really quite sad how people manipulate the Bible to the point that they use it as a justification for spanking. I'm just going to link what I've said before. This post is about how spanking is not a Biblical mandate and this one is about how people ignore how the Bible talks about gently disciplining children. If you'd like to talk about the topic some more, by all means. I may or may not be around to reply. I mean I am after all in my own version of Advent (waiting for the arrival of my second son).

And we've already covered the topic of obedience. I should mention that the Bible says to honor your parents, which is different than blind obedience. (Ephesians 6:2, Mark 7:10, Exodus 20:12)

The Frustration with Sign

2011-12-02T17:01:00.001-08:00

My son has been learning ASL or rather Signed English (which is different than ASL). He's been learning it since birth and so will my other son. We enjoy teaching him the language and it is it's own language because there's no confusion as to what his needs are. But it has it's draw backs.

Let me "back up" as Hubby likes to say. I once dated a guy from Colombia (the country not the university). He had a younger brother who about six years old at the time. He told me that his brother was learning his colors in English. You see in other countries learning another language in school along with your native language is normal. And it's better this way because children who learn a language before the age of 12 retain that language for the rest of their life. In the United State public school system, we don't begin to teach our children another language until about the age of 12. It's counter intuitive because for the most part the vast majority of Americans don't remember a thing. My husband, for example, took Spanish in highschool. I've never had any formal Spanish, but whenever there's something basic that needs to be translated (because we lived in Tucson), I translated it. I took French. People have told me (well, my German teacher) that I tend to pick up language quickly. Maybe it's because music notation is said to use the same part of your brain as language acquisition. Maybe it's a natural talent of mine. Needless to say Americans, for the most part, only speak English and only care to.

My son doesn't just speak English. He signs. And I'm glad for it. Even if he chooses never to pursue any studies in ASL, his brain is now wired for languages beyond spoken English.

The draw back is that not very many people have any basic understanding of ASL. Not even remotely. And English gestures do not correspond with ASL.

For example, never use the "OK" sign with a deaf person. They will think that you are calling them an A**hole. You want to tell them "yes" either nod your head or nod your fist.

Saying "hello" in ASL is a salute. We've had to eliminate that and go Hawaiian by using the same sign for bye and hello. It's not squeezing your fist either. That means "milk." So all those strangers who think my son was saying bye and oh how cute. Nope, you've just confused him because he's asking for milk.

And I hate to tell all my lovely relatives this, but HB doesn't blow kisses at you either. He's saying "thank you." Yes, it looks the same, but it's not. And what's more is because they ask him to blow kisses, he's getting confused because we also ask him to say "thank you." If you want the sign for kiss, form your hand like you would when talking about a duck and touch your cheek. That means kiss your cheek. I've tried to tell Hubby to talk to his family about this, but he's stubbornly refusing. So I suppose I'm going to have to be the one to break the news.

Needless to say, I hope that more people will realize that gestured English is a far cry from ASL or signed English and to watch what they "say". Most deaf people realize this and just deal with it even though it annoys them. Unfortunately, it's just confusing the heck out of my child who is trying to learn two languages in a largely spoken English-only world.

Making Ends Meet

2011-12-01T20:56:00.001-08:00

Yes, this is yet another post about finances. Sorry. If it bugs you to read about another person's stuff, then please feel free to pass on this post.

So we're again, experiencing some financial stress. This time we are barely able to balance the budget. The reason is because we moved. Our rent plus utilities plus renters insurance is higher than when we paid just a mortgage payment. Our renters insurance I pay yearly to save a few bucks; I realize not everyone is able to do that but that's where our income refund goes. The utilities people can usually conserve. We can't. Our utilities is divided among the rental units based on the size of the apartment and the number of occupants. So even if we literally shut off the a/c to save money or not use the heat etc etc, we'd still be paying out our butts. It's something Hubby didn't realize until after the contract was signed. So we pay a ton in electricity compared to what we used to. The only thing we can do is not inform our landlords that we've had a baby. Babies don't really cost that much more and since we don't use disposable diapers all that much, aren't going to jack up the trash expenses of our complex either. We also breastfeed so no water or electricity there.

Then there's the additional expense of the condo. I've looked into government assistance and because we receive a tiny income from renting it out, it puts us just barely over the line. Fortunately because we're taking a massive hit to rent out the place, we're probably going to get a nice income tax return refund. And there's no wiggle room there. Short of fixing it up more to attract higher paying renters, we're out of luck.

There's also the expenses of giving birth. Our birth center wants payment ahead of time and since I was late in the game, we can't really spread it out. They haven't sent me statements or anything yet, but I've been trying to make a monthly payment.

So I've looked into cutting other things. I recently cut our Netflix bill in half and gone to streaming online only. We don't have cable so this is modest. We could cut it out altogether and maybe we will, but it hardly will help. I also looked into our phone (which is as basic as it comes) and our internet. We could eliminate the internet (and thus netflix). It's a possibility that Hubby and I banter back and forth with. I'm not sure how much his mother would like not being able to chat online with her grandsons. Hubby points out that we could trek up to his office, but then we couldn't just do that whenever and that's a bit like stealing. We could cut back to basic internet and thus get rid of netflix too. We just haven't decided exactly yet. These aren't frivolous expenses that one can just easily trim away.

The one thing we can do is stop eating out or rather take back up the suggestion that we agreed to last budget crisis but never fully implemented. The suggestion was whoever wants to eat out has to pull out the money from their mad money account. We still have mad money. We keep Christmas or Birthday money in it and small stipends every month. We could also trim down the stipend. Hubby didn't want to do that. His suggestion was as needed we just put the money back into the main account. So that's what we'll do. Anyways...looking at our credit card (which we pay off every stinking month but only use it because we're milking the system er um earning cash back), if we cut out all those little trips for burgers or icecream from the main budget, we'll balance our check book every month.

Other ways to trim the budget, I'm going through the shopping ads again. Walmart does ad matching. Usually I would go store to store and there was also our outlet store, but the outlets in this area are far enough away that it would eat what I save just for driving. So I'm doing the coupon/generic/ad matching thing to try and trim the fat. I would love to convince my husband to give up over processed junk food, but that's not going to happen if we're giving up burger joints.

I could also add to the budget. Hubby keeps suggesting, again, that I return to work. I smiled at him today and said "Sweety, who's going to hire me?" "Well, you could start looking now" "Yeah, and they'll say 'see you in four months'" People just aren't hiring all that well in this economy. And there is also daycare expenses so we would only be padding a thin wallet while institutionalizing our children during their most vulnerable years. If I'm going to work at all, then it would be part time when Hubby can watch the kids. I could also try and watch other people's kids, but given our issues with baby sitters being highly allergic to our cats, I have reservations that that will work.

So here we are. Isn't Christmas going to be fun this year? Well, actually it's turning out to be not so bad. Before we moved we pawned a lot of stuff and got store credit from a chain. So last weekend we went Christmas shopping with our store credit. HB is getting a few books, some board games, and Veggie Tale videos. Yes, board games. For a not quite two year old. Hubby is a gamer. He has learned that young children can play matching games if you break down the steps into small components and teach those one at a time. HB has mastered one game already. Hubby plans on teaching him shoots and ladders and candy land. My kid's pretty smart. Yesterday, he debuted a new song he learned from one of his electronic devices. It's the Alphabet song. He spontaneously sings it. Now he's not good at pronouncing things. LMNOP sounds like ya ya ya ya P. But you know what he's singing. Okay, I digress. I also bought him one toy from our church's consignment sale. It's toy cars with a track. I also splurged and bought him a table and chair set. We'd been talking about that for a while. He needs a place to sit and work on things like coloring, puzzles, etc. instead of just the floor or climbing up into his booster seat. He's at that age. Plus if we have company he can sit and eat at a kiddie table if there's not enough room.

And that's it. So if our families are expecting Christmas cards or gifts this year, sorry. We're having a baby and on top of that dealing with making ends meet so I'm afraid you'll just get a baby and lots of smiles for gifts this year.

Cold, Confession, and Bible Misunderstandings

2011-11-28T22:31:00.001-08:00

So I'm happy to say that I'm pretty much over the cold, but my body is overly tired and really I should be sleeping not typing. Unfortunately, a certain Mr. Stinks aka Little Brother is waking up. So much for that. The cold sucked the life out of me. On Saturday, Hubby went to work after giving me two days in a row off. I spent the morning sleeping. Usually I doze for about 15-20 minutes on the couch while HB does his own thing. That morning HB sat next to me and I slept an hour and forty-five, woke up, and declared that CPS should have been called as I became a terrible Mommy who neglected a little boy. But I'm sure it's happened to a few sick parents before.

So Hubby mentioned the overkill of the I Confess. This got us into a discussion about many things including public and private Confession. I've mentioned it before (just do a search) so I won't do much repeating. Hubby talked about a couple of things: 1) he doesn't necessarily agree that there's anything wrong with having both public and private confession. There are some Protestants who do. I use the term Protestant because it's a general term for non-Catholic and non-Orthodox Christians (who share similar views and theology). I could be specific, but I have learned that there are so many denominations within denominations (what type of Lutheran are you?) that it makes my head spin and it would take me all day to weed through who believes what. Hubby was raised Baptist so that's his perspective. The problem with Hubby isn't that he thinks Catholicism is illogical, quite the contrary. No, the problem for him is what exactly does he personally believe. He kinda views Christianity as a philosophy or a theory. 2) He did say that someone once quote a bit of the Old Testament to him about spoken Confession or something. I had to Google to figure out what he was talking about since I don't recall there every being a passage about man silently mouthing his confession. The closest I could come up with is this: 1 Samuel 1:9-17.

The passage is talking about Hannah's prayer to have a child. It doesn't have anything to do with confession. It's the difference between silent and spoken prayer. Jews often spoke out very loudly, and in this case one can interpret that silent prayers are also heard. But Jesus talks about that in Matthew 6:6.

And I've talked about public and private confessions before and how it's more common than most people think. And I've talked about how priest's have given the authority but do not have the power to forgive sins (my analogy was a teacher's authority over a student). One Protestant site actually referred to the entire congregation as the priesthood and therefore said that it was important to pray for the remission of sins for others since they have the power to do so (as Christians). I'm not sure I can follow that logic since Jesus gave this authority to the apostles specifically (John 20:22-23). He didn't give it to anyone. Nor have I heard a Protestant congregation refer to itself as being the priesthood. I know it's a Catholic thing to say the ordained priesthood versus the common priesthood so maybe that's where the root of it is. Most Protestants hate the word "priest" and prefer something else like "minister" or "elders."

Interestingly, Hubby asked me about the difference between a priest and a rabbi as far as Judaism is concerned. There are no Jewish priests currently because there is no temple. Apparently Jewish priests were from a specific line (Levites) and were attached to the temple. Someone said they were more like scribes and things although they performed ritual sacrifices and purification and were the only ones allowed to do so. Rabbi means teacher. They were originally, you may have surmised, teachers of Jewish law and customs. Today they are in charge of their synagogue. Jesus was not called a priest by his Jewish followers because he was not a Levite. He was called, Rabbi, because he was a teacher. Make sense?

It is interesting that people of some Protestant groups give actual directives on how exactly your supposed to pray especially when it concerns how Catholics pray (which is often said to be wrong). I think I've mentioned that too. Something about the babbling of pagans getting confused especially since the Our Father follows directly from that Bible verse (Matthew 6:9-13).

I've also talked about Venial sins versus Mortal sins and how they work. Venial sins do not require confession. You do have to publicly confess them at the beginning of Mass before receiving common. Mortal sins must be absolved in confession first. This is the reason for the I Confess, which has changed to be more close to the Latin text.

Hubby thought the beating of the breast and repeating my fault three times was a bit over board, but it's symbolic. First of all like all parts of the Mass, it's based in the Bible specifically Luke 18:13 and Jeremiah 31:19 (NIV). To beat ones breast is to show remorse for sin.

As far as the triple repetition. This is actually common in the Mass. We say "Holy, Holy, Holy" and also use it in the "Lamb of God/ Agnes Dei." There are numerous theories as to why the I Confess has this triple repetition. One can speculate that it's a human characteristic meant for emphasis or a symbol of the trinity. Suffices to say that the practice is ancient and a part of the Latin text so when they translated it into English they chose to stay closer to the original form.

Oh and for those of you who may find this interesting the "Christ has died, Christ has risen...." is not part of the original Latin. This was thrown in during the second edition translation. So alas you will never hear those all to common words again since they discarded them to be more authentic.

Getting Used to the New Translation

2011-11-28T08:19:00.001-08:00

Yesterday we attended Mass with all the new stuff. Let me back up a little bit. Our parish priests have been preping for the changes for a couple of months. In fact, because they tend to not sing the Gloria during Advent he had the choir introduce that early. All of the homilies have consisted of discussions about the translation from what's being translated and why as well as basic info on the translation process (which pertains to anything really). Apparently we're unique. The head priest said that at his mother's parish they didn't do anything to prepare the weekly church goers. He said he had to explain everything briefly to his mother over the phone.

I imagine that a few parishes have done a few different things from inserts in the bulletin to evening "classes/discussions" about what's going on. I am sure, like the priest's mother, that a few have only mentioned it and otherwise ignored the congregations' needs. I've been reading over the internet that several priests have largely hated the changes since they haven't felt that they were even needed.

Personally, I think staying closer to the actual words is the way to go. I understand capturing the spirit of the Latin as the second edition intended, but some of the bigger changes like "and with your spirit" lost meaning when they were translated as "and also with you."

It was rather cute to hear people fumbling over it. The priest started Mass explaining that they would project the new responses on the wall (we have projectors) and that they were in the missals and on pew cards. He also said that he would applaud us if we were able to muddle through it and not go on auto pilot. My favorite fumbles were "and also with your spirit." I know I said that a couple of times myself. Honestly, what parent with a toddler would not go on auto pilot while retrieving sippy cups and toys.

The thing that Hubby thought was over kill (but keep in mind he wasn't raised Catholic) was the mea culpa or my fault of the I Confess. I had to explain to him, briefly, the differences between venial sins and mortal sins and that the I Confess is a public confession which absolves you from venial sins. This led into a whole discussion about confessions which gave me a fresh prospective on the subject. I'll probably discuss it in another post. Suffices to say, that one of my very misguided Protestant friends has it on "good authority" that the Catholic church has in the past banned the reading of the Bible.

Sorry, Jesse. The Church has never banned the laity from reading the Bible. They have banned the reading of very bad translations (like they still discourage today such as the Jehovah's Witness Bible and the Book of Mormon). And because it was expensive to own a Bible, Bibles were kept under watchful eye in libraries (stealing was prevalent). But everyone had access to reading one if they so choose or could since the rich who could afford a Bible were about the only ones who could read anyway. Therefore, saying that the Catholic church banned the reading of the Bible without more details than that is like saying eating chocolate will kill you. Certain types of chocolate are actually good for you, and eating a little of the bad stuff won't hurt you. It's the massive quantities over time that could potentially affect your health.

But anyway...there are a number of good sources that go into more details about it citing the statements made on the subject, but I'm sure my friend's sources are Protestant-biased since he's never mentioned any of this crap to me directly.

Shameless Black Friday Request

2011-11-24T23:17:00.001-08:00

So a while back ago I mentioned something about a virtual baby shower. Well I compiled a list of items and discovered that there's really only one thing needed. It's ironic really since this one necessary item is something that I write a weekly blog/column about for another website. You'd think after being a long time breastfeeding mom whose nurses while pregnant, plans on tandem nursing, and promotes breastfeeding vigilantly (see right side bar to get the idea) that I would own at least a manual one, but alas no. I do not own a breast pump. I thought that I could get away from owning one, but after shelling out some dough on renting a hospital grade pump, I could have put my money to better use on a down payment for my own pump.

Well the hospital grade accessories I own are for a Medela, which is supposedly the best breast pump on the market. The problem is that Medela hasn't bothered trying to comply with the WHO's International Code of Marketing of Breast Milk Substitutes. Basically the Code is rather lengthy and discusses how companies should be making every effort to support breastfeeding and not infant formula etc. Medela's statement says" We also ask that you evaluate Medela’s dedication to breastfeeding, as well as that of other manufacturers, not solely on Code-compliance." They basically talk a big game without acknowledging how much money they funnel into promoting the use of bottles as opposed to breasts.

There is hope. One company, Hygeia, is completely code compliant. The breast pumps made by Simplisse, Lansinoh, and Ameda are owned by three different bottle manufacturing companies, who are not code compliant. The International Lactation Consultant Association lists Simplisse and Lansinoh as being code compliant and will most likely also list Ameda. These three companies follow the codes despite their parent company not doing so.

So what's a girl to do? Well obviously avoid Medela like the plague and go with another company. I chose Ameda since it's got great reviews as being a good breast pump even in the face of Medela's reputation. Plus it's reasonably priced.

So I humbly ask that this Black Friday you drop a couple bucks in the bucket for an Ameda Purely Yours Breast pump. Call it a baby shower/Christmas gift. The pump only cost 159.95 without all the fancy do dads that I really don't need. This is less than Medela's version, in case your curious.

What do you get out of the deal? Lots of articles showing off the pump and petitions to Our Lady of Le Leche (aka the Blessed Virgin Mary) on any subject related to breastfeeding. Want better nursing in public protection? Need some help with a breastfeeding problem? Trying to get a friend to consider nursing instead of infant formula? Then I'm your prayer buddy.

Just hit the donate button below or on the right side bar and drop a couple bucks in the bucket. Muchos Gracias!

You can't change your dna

2011-11-23T18:50:00.001-08:00

I watched the finale of Dancing with the Stars or rather parts of it. I usually like to watch it, but this season I've had reservations about watching a very large "man" sweat it on the dance floor. When she was shone, my husband had been making remarks about if he knew who any of the celebrities were or rather telling the difference between the professional dancers and celebrities. His remark was this exactly "well, he's definitely a celebrity. He doesn't even look like a dancer."

My response: Well, he's not a man. He's a woman.

*several stars emerge*

Hubby: No, not that one. I was talking about that large guy before.

Me: Yes, dear I know. But that's a woman.

My point was that even though Chaz/Chastity Bono appears to be a man when fully clothed. She is in fact a woman having still got her female parts, but more importantly by dna.

I admit that I'm biased. I enjoy being a woman and have no desire whatsoever to try and somehow change that. I can't understand why Chastity feels more herself as Chaz. But..

See there's this tricky thing about dna. You can change your outward appearance, but if you had your dna tested, it would say that you're either a man or a woman. Dang those nasty chromosomes. It's impossible to truly alter your gender because dang it, your dna cannot be altered.

So Chastity Bono and I share one thing in common. We are women because we have two X chromosomes and that's not something that you can pretend away.

Silly Boys

2011-11-22T18:03:00.001-08:00

Coming in the door from work

Hubby: You sound congested.

Me: Yeah, I told you that I had a cold.

Hubby: Yeah, you did, but you didn't sound like that this morning.

Me: *rolling my eyes*

Colds don't start off with a person sounding like they swallowed a frog. Usually the other symptoms show up first like laying in bed for two days straight. Silly boys. When will they ever believe that women aren't invincible from the dreaded cold season.

They're baack...

2011-11-19T11:41:00.001-08:00

My cramps returned, but this time there's nothing I can do except monitor the baby. It's like last time. Cramps but nothing else. I'm going to jump in the tub and leave HB to watch another Veggie Tale. Laying down seems to help stop them. Hopefully they'll disappear soon.

7 Quick Takes- My All Time Favorite Religious Flicks

2011-11-18T19:00:00.001-08:00

Decided to include a list of fictional and nonfictional religious characters from movies that I enjoy. Some of these movies are oldies but goodies and some are more recent. Hope that you enjoy sitting down and watching some over Advent while thinking about the religious people in our lives.

1) The Bells of St. Mary's- Stars Ingrid Bergman and Bing Crosby. A fictional story about a nun and a priest trying to save a falling apart Catholic School

2) The Trouble with Angels- Staring Haley Mills This movie is a fictional story about two girls sent off to an all-girls Catholic boarding school, St. Francis's, and all the trouble they cause while there.

3) The Song of Bernadette- Story about St. Bernadette who saw visions of the BVM. She later joined the Sisters of Charity

4) Molokai: the Story of Father Damien- This one came out recently and quickly became a favorite of mine. It's the story of Father Damien, later St. Damien, who ministered to the lepers on Molokai in Hawaii.

5) The Sound of Music- Loosely based on the von Trapp family. The main character wanted to become a nun and there are several minor characters who are also nuns.

6) Pope John Paul II- This is about the life of Pope John Paul II from his early days before becoming a priest to his rise to the papacy

7) Into Great Silence- Documentary film about the cloistered Carthusian monks who dwell in the French alps. The monks speak French and the movie is subtitled in German and English.

Liar, Liar Your pants....

2011-11-18T18:41:00.001-08:00

I'm sure I'm not the only one who resorts to the sin of lying. We've all been in that situation where we try to make things better by exaggerating the truth. Telling people that they look nice when really we mean they look nicer than they have in the past.

I've also had that occasional run in with a person at the store. They ask you how you're doing and you simply say "fine" or "good" because you probably know that they aren't interested in the fact that your period is really heavy today, you've got to pee, or you've just spent the last hour cleaning up some major mess that your toddler created. In other words, things aren't all that great or fine, but it could be a whole lot worse.

I've been known to fudge around it especially during pregnancy. "How have you been feeling?" My responses range from "Oh, you know..." to "As good as can be expected." Some people really don't want to hear about your aches and pains or the difficulty it takes to wipe ones bottom after a trip to the toilet (yes, I did just mention something about poo and yes, you did just hear that part). I mean do people really want to know all the gory details? Surely this kind of white lie is better than being completely and brutally honest.

But I also lie about things that I have no desire to get into a confrontation about. Like to the ob who I now have to see every week. She asked me how my protein intake was and so I lied and said it was fine. She asked me to chart it. "Can you chart it for me?" "Sure." Did I, have I, will I? Nope. Call it being stubborn. And the dozy of it all, how I'm feeling with giving birth there. Do I have any apprehensions? I lied and said that I was fine. It's a lot nicer than to say that I think she's breathing down my neck too much and the fact that I think some of the stuff they say is a little out there. The mid-wife had suggested taking a bath with Himalayan salt as opposed to dead sea salt because it's "better." And then the ob told me to tell my infant that it was okay to come out and that we are all joyfully and excitedly anticipating seeing him. Who am I fooling? It's the freaking holidays and we're all tired and strung out from a difficult pregnancy. My child has watched way too many Veggie Tales. And my husband barely has time to wash dishes let alone scrub a toilet (which incidentally has turned orange because it's been a couple months. yes, months. any volunteers?) We don't want the child to come out because we're joyful. We know that once he's out it will be far from joyful. We want him out so I can start on the path to normalcy. Let's be real here.

So I guess I should add up all my lies of late and put it on my confessional list. Eventually, I hope to feel repentant. Right now I just feel pain.

Extreme Frustration Update

2011-11-17T17:38:00.001-08:00

I should probably clarify that my extreme frustration was not with Hubby. It may have been easy to conclude that he was the cause of it, but ultimately the reason for my frustration was that I thought that I was loosing it a little. Did I seriously misinterpret a whole conversation? Did I imagine things? At this hormonal "go for launch" stage, anything is possible and therefore my usual "good at remembering everything" self started to have self-doubt. Hubby admits that he cannot multi-task. If he has to do some task and hold a conversation, something will inevitably go wrong. That's why I can't talk to him very much in the car. He either will miss a turn or he will forget anything said. Maybe it's a male thing.

So was I correct or did the hormones that cause a person to be hyper-focused on one thing kick into gear? I was correct. The couple did say they would watch HB while I was in labor, and Hubby did miss that entire conversation despite standing right next to me while it happened.

I'm happy to say that I am not crazy. And that's a relief because everything else at the moment is. I have to start cooking a ton and pack my bags and tell my baby it's time to come out (I think the ob is a little hookey for thinking that that's going to work). And work on baptismal stuff and e-mail people. and...well you get the point.

As for the baby, the ob asked me if I've had any contractions, Braxton-Hicks or pressure waves. "No." "Not even one?" "No, never had any with my oldest either." "Oh." Sorry, lady. You may be delivering a baby right before Christmas. Sorry to spoil your holiday. I've felt some pressure on my cervix, but that's normal. My whole bottom is swollen and puffed out too. But no water breakage, no spotting (so I imagine my cervix isn't very open), and no alas no pressure waves. I'm thrilled that I get more time and perhaps an uneventful Thanksgiving.

Extreme Frustration

2011-11-14T10:28:00.001-08:00

I hate a few things in life. 1) I hate people who "think outloud" any decision making. My husband does this a lot going back and forth until I'm utterly confused. And then he tells me later that he never decided anything. I'm not sure if this is a normal peeve for people, but it drives me up the wall. I don't care to listen to anyone's inner dialogue especially if it seems like they've decided something and are using it to clue me in. I suppose the reason is because it makes the person seem indecisive or worse it totally confuses me into thinking one thing. I don't mind listening to a person's thought process afterwards to get constructive feedback. But my husband tells me every thought that comes across his head and I really get irritated about that.

2) Indecisiveness drives me crazy too. This may be the reason for my hate of "thinking outloud." Some decisions are cut and dry, meaning they are real obvious. The not so obvious ones may require a little thinking to figure out a solution. But the ones that it doesn't really matter like tatter tots or french fries, now come on really. Why do people change their minds about that sort of thing so much? I'm sure that people working the drive thru get so tired of that.

3) Once I make a decision that's what I stick with. Otherwise I could care less. For example, my husband and I have bantered back and forth (apparently) about his attendance during the birth. Honestly, I don't care one wit if he's there or if anyone is there for that matter. My husband wasn't there for the first birth, and my husband lacks emotional support to the nth degree. Oh, he's good about practicality, but all I can see is him making some rather disgusting jokes about things like eating the placenta or it looks like a wet dog coming through the cat door. Calah calls her husband the Ogre. I would say that my husband is sort of an Ogre too in that he lacks any real tact, but Court Jester might be a better description. Maybe we need to start a support group. Sorry digressed into a rant. The point is that the decision isn't up to me. It's up to my husband who has informed me that he wants to be there. Fine. Over an apparent misunderstanding, he has not found anyone to watch HB for him yet (I think :\ ) So basically I had to tell him that he needs to find someone if that's what he wants to do or he has to watch HB. And that's that. I wash my hands of it.

4) Not understand people's meaning. So Hubby contacted the marriage and family coordinator at our church to ask for help, help for a number of things from regular babysitting to finding someone to watch HB while I'm in labor. I got the impression on Saturday that the coordinator had found a family to watch HB for labor, but her email just says watch HB. So we went to the thing and she introduces us and I swear (but maybe I've lost my marbles) that the guy asked if we were the ones who needed someone for labor. Hubby who was standing two inches to my left does not recall any such conversation. In fact, he tells me that he didn't know that this man was the person we were supposed meet (which explains why he asked me about it later but Hubby has a tendency confuse faces).

To top it off, I kept saying to Hubby well if I'm wrong why did the guy ask where we lived and what hospital. Hubby's response was isn't that normal conversation. I really don't think you ask a stranger where they live unless you're making plans to have them over or something. Nor do you ask about the hospital. Usually you ask about the doctor or how the person's feeling or that sort of thing. Hospital's not normally what you ask about. So maybe I'm right.

And this is what led to an argument today because I swear Hubby said they were willing to watch HB during labor and that he was present to hear all that. And Hubby swears he didn't hear anything of the sort and never said anything to remotely give that impression.

And this is what we've been arguing about a lot. My favorite phrase these days is "I don't understand what you're saying" or "I don't understand what you mean." To which he usually responds with "how do you not understand? What am I saying doesn't make sense to you?" Oh, what he's saying makes sense he's just not providing enough context.

And the irony of it all is that marriage workshop was about communication. And none of it had to do with clarity. It had to do with talking more. Little good it did.

Update: Hubby tells me that a friend of his calls this little recall phenomenon this: that Hubby has split personality disorder, all of his personalities are the same behavior wise, but they don't remember what the other personality was privy too. I could see that as being somewhat true. Since my husband didn't even recall any of the registration stuff with any clarity, and I had to remind him about signing our names, and name tags, and asking about the program stuff (Oh, now I remember that). So maybe I haven't lost my mind. I still feel like shooting myself in the foot though.

Adoration

2011-11-12T22:15:00.001-08:00

So Hubby and I went to some marriage building thingy at church. It was totally Hubby's idea. I was opposed to it because it meant 1) we had to bring something for HB to eat while someone else watched him fortunately at the church, my old church never had child care for events like this, which didn't make sense 2) I would have to sit for long periods of time, which would be total torture 3) I would have to get "touchy feely" with my emotions which are all over the map anyway and 4) taking your husband who makes fun of virtually everything including religious stuff to a religious function where there would be mass amounts of prayer and....and Eucharistic Benediction and Adoration spelled disaster in my mind.

So why did I go? I was guilt tripped into it. Oh, there's this wonderful couple there who are willing to watch HB for you while you're in labor that want to meet you. And oh, we can make friends with other couples who have kids because our church has a plethora of young couples with kids HB's age. Did I mention that I'm not too good at social gatherings particularly large ones? I think I've said it before, I'm totally socially awkward.

Okay. Fine. I'll take my uncomfortable self and endure a few hours of physical torture because my husband actually wants to go to a religious function that doesn't just involve food. Call it a twisted version of "offering it up."

So how was it? Not as torturous as I envisioned. We did meet the couple who have four kids and live relatively close. We didn't get to talk too them much. The wife was busy corralling their 10 month old and the husband was one of the people putting on the event. We did meet another couple who also have a two year old. And Hubby did the whole "wanna set-up a play-date" thing and exchanged numbers with each.

The shocker to me was the Eucharistic Benediction and Adoration. I was cringing that my husband would detest sitting there and since I love Adoration, I didn't want to hear anything remotely negative or bad jokes. But it ended and he said he liked it. In fact, he said he'd never been to one before. Why I didn't realize that, I have no idea. I mean Hubby was raised Baptist. All the Baptist services I've ever heard of usually involve talking. He said he liked it because it was quiet. In fact, I had to tell him afterwards (because I had to wave off his whispered questions), that Adoration is more quiet than Mass (or at least it's supposed to be. The spontaneous prayer coming from the other coordinator made it very difficult for this contemplative Catholic to settle in. I guess that's what's going to happen when you put a Charismatic Catholic in the same room with a Contemplative Catholic. Bound to get friction.)

Oh, Hubby says. I thought it was more like Mass where you can whisper a little if you need to. Nope. Not supposed to say anything. It's all about the silence. Hence this Contemplative Catholic's love of Adoration. Well, I really enjoyed it, he says to me. While I pick my jaw up from the floor.

In fact, he told me that he was willing to go to Mass with me weekly "since you like it and it makes it easier on you right now with HB and all." His thoughts were that when he was Baptist he basically spent his entire Sunday at church listening to hour long sermons twice and had Bible study or Sunday school too. If you're Catholic, you go to one service for an hour with only a 15 minute sermon. He figures he can deal with that kind of "torture." I asked him if he was getting sick or something. "No, I'm serious. Besides. It's good to be social and meet people." Sounds like he's courting Mass to mingle.

But whatever gets him in the door, I will not stand in the way of the Almighty's methods. I have heard of stranger things happening to people by way of their baptism even from those who had no idea that they were even baptized Catholic. Hubby at least knows that he's been baptized. And he's been baptized twice: Catholic and then Baptist (since they didn't recognize his infant baptism).

And since Hubby's religious experience has always been that religious functions are also social occasions and ways to meet people, then this quiet Contemplative Catholic will learn to talk more at Church. If Hubby thinks we can meet people through Church and that keeps him going, then so be it. I am worried, however, that once we make friends he may stop. Of course, then those friends will be Mass-attending Catholics so he'll at least feel compelled to go from forces other than myself, our children, and the Holy Spirit (who don't seem to deliver quite the 1-2 punch that meeting people does).

Oh, Saint Monica, however did you win over your husband's heart? I seem to lack the patience. Saint Monica is vastly becoming my go-to Saint for the conversion of Hubby's soul.

Anyways...thought I would share a little bit of tidbits about Catholicism (how about the fact that a Jesuit came up with the Big Bang Theory or that we have the Vatican Observatory) Okay just watch the video.

Or for my Polish Speaking relatives (yes, I have Polish speaking relatives and Hubby has German ones but there's no German video).

7 Random Quick Takes

2011-11-11T17:34:00.001-08:00

1) So I'm totally ignoring my family. I sorta have been every evening for the past few days. It's probably because at this point in pregnancy I'm constantly being reminded that I'm never alone. Hubby started grumbling after being home about an hour about having to play with HB. I just don't get it. He also got upset with me from heading off to "my cave." I suppose it's that only child syndrome rearing it's ugly head. Even my mid-wife told my husband that he basically needed to get over living in a messy house for a while. She was nicer about it. I suppose when you have 10 kids like she does she can say stuff like that to Hubby and he'll listen.

2) Thought this was pretty cute. A mom used her kid to recreate movie scenes. My favorite is Close Encounters with the Third Kind because it's totally a kid thing to sculpt stuff out of a mound of mashed potatoes.

3) Not sure what to make of this blogger's post. I've put my comment on the back burner so I can tactfully think of something to say. On the one hand, I agree that equating spanking as a Christian form of punishment is dumb. There are plenty of other religious and non-religious families who spank. However, I think he dismisses what the Pearl's advocate without actually knowing anything about them. He says "The Pearls want what every parent wants: children who are good." Sure but at what cost; does deciding it's okay to spank a child who is 6 months old with a switch make a child who lacks that kind of cognitive understanding okay? I mean they don't even have object permanence at 6 months of age. They can't even remember not to do something they've already been swatted for. And what sense does it make to swat a 6 month old child for doing something normal like crying? Again not sure what to say about the post. I'm sure if he knew the truth he too would be horrified.

4) Happy Saint Martin de Tours Day! "I am a solider of Christ. I cannot fight." I don't celebrate Veteran's Day. This has caused a lot of controversy in the past with various people, but I'm a conscientious objector who doesn't support the training of people in order to kill other people. My brother is in the military, in case you're curious. I haven't spoken to him about his decision, but I'm sure he knows that I don't support it.

5) I have two more days (well less than that) until I'm "Go for Launch." I don't think anyone in this house has really begun to realize this. I know I haven't fully grasped this until today at the Chiro's when the receptionist asked me how far along I was and I told her almost 9 months. She gasped. Of course I had to explain the whole "they count what month you're in and not how many you've completed" spiel. I know Hubby hasn't figured it out yet. He told his family that we would not be coming out for Thanksgiving because "the third trimester has been hard on DF because DF has been sick." No mention of the more important reason that I could go into labor at any point in time from now. No mention that he hasn't got any vacation time. Yeah, blame it on me and my "pregnancy pains." Now you see why I'm hiding in "my cave" and am super snappy at the moment.

6) They turned the heat on yesterday. Ugh! It's not even that cold and I'm hugely pregnant. Needless to say I turned the thermostat down as much as possible since we can't even turn it off (I swear they need to upgrade to digital) and put on fans. I met someone who told me that she lived here her whole life and hates the cold weather. This is cold? A high in the late 60s, early 70s is cold? I miss Tucson. It has better weather.

7) My child is obsessed with Veggie Tales. He sings the theme song. When they sing "It's Time for Veggie Tales" he bursts out with the correct pitch an "Ah" and then gives a raspberry at precisely the cymbal crash (when Larry falls over). He knows most of the silly songs. I've created a monster.

Uh, Oh. (Or Uh, OO. As HB says) My MIL just called. Sounds like bad news. I guess I better get out of "my cave."

What is the Orthodox Church?

2011-11-10T20:37:00.001-08:00

I visited an Orthodox Church once (not a service it was a festival and they gave a tour). Our guide was asked to explain some of the differences between Orthodox and Catholic and her fellow guide, who was a convert from Catholicism, explained it as best as he could. I've since looked up some more information and find it's biased from both sides.

One Catholic priest made references to the fact that Orthodox clergy can marry. It should be noted that so can Catholic clergy of certain rites. I've also read that the Orthodox use leavened bread for their service and Catholic don't. That's not true either. Again some of the Eastern Catholics use leavened bread. It's a bit unfair to use the Latin Rite as the litmus for what is Catholic belief versus Orthodox belief since many of the Eastern Catholics follow similar Orthodox traditions which are different than the Western Catholic traditions.

There is also this notion that Orthodox is more "mystical" since many of it's dogmas aren't as defined as Catholicism. I've read one Orthodox priest say that Catholics are too legalistic, which I find laughable since many of our own dogmas (the Immaculate Conception of Mary for example) aren't well defined either.

So I've compiled a list from several sources of what I know is true and factually different between all Catholics and most Orthodox.

Similarities
The Holy Trinity
Christ as Savior
Christ's death and resurrection
Mary as Theotokos (Christ bearer) and Christ as God incarnate
Bible is inspired word of God
Holy Spirit guides the Church and faithful
Three fold ministry: deacons, priests, bishops
Importance of Apostolic Succession
Seven Sacraments or Seven Great Mysteries: Although they are given different names are essentially the same
Christ truly present in the Eucharist
Similarities in Church structure and art
Mary, being Theotokos, is supreme of all saints
Veneration of Saints
Use of religious icons
Use of incense, vestments, and ceremony as part of human worship experience
Belief in a Temporary and Final Judgement along with a Corporal Resurrection
Celebrate the Divine Office or Liturgy of the Hours
Similarities in Fasting and Almsgiving
Both do not recognize divorce but on occasion the need for married couples to separate (ie domestic violence cases)
Monasticism
Prayer for the dead
Jesus is both fully human and fully divine
Do not subscribe to Sola Scriptura
Do not subscribe to Sola Fide

Differences
Catholics- Bishop of Rome is supreme spiritual leader of Church. Orthodox- Patriarch of Constantinople is "First Among Equals" all 13 individual churches largely self-rule

Catholics have Filioque or the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. Orthodox says Holy Spirit only proceeds from Father.

Catholics believe that Mary was conceived without sin. Orthodox believe that Mary did not enter into a sinless state until she agreed to become the Theotokos at the Annunciation.

Catholics believe that we inherited Adam's sin during the Fall. Orthodox believe that Original Sin comes from the consequences of Adam's sin.

Orthodox church allows the laity more power in the decision to choose a priest.

Catholic bishops have a priest advisory board. Orthodox the Bishop rules together with a synod of priests.

Orthodox view salvation as trying to get closer to God (theosis) whereas Catholics view salvation as repudiation of sin.

Catholics have the doctrine of Papal Infallibility while Orthodox do not.

Catholics believe in Purgatory while Orthodox do not.

Catholics believe there is a limited number of Sacraments or Mysteries. Orthodox consider the Sacraments and along with sacramentals to all be Mysteries and therefore are not limited in number.

Catholics believe in confession of sins to a priest for forgiveness and penance and that the priest has the power to "bind or loose" sins. Orthodox believe that the priest acts as a spiritual adviser and help in overcoming sin to attain theosis.

Catholics reserve the Sacrament of the Sick to those who are critically ill, injured, or dying. Orthodox allow anyone in need-spiritually or physically to receive Unction.

Orthodox church encourages the restricted use of only two-dimensional icons whereas Catholics use statues.

Orthodox has more books in the Bible.
*******

There's a bit more to it then this brief overview, but I hope this helps.

Having THE Talk

2011-11-10T19:46:00.001-08:00

Riding home in the car on the way back from Mass discussing the upcoming Mass times for All Saints

Me: *peering at the bulletin's letter from the priest about funerals* So we need to talk about something. What kind of funeral would you like?

Hubby: I've got a long time to think about it.

Me: But what if you die tomorrow? What am I supposed to do?

Hubby: Throw me a giant party and tell people not to cry.

Me: *sarcastically* Yeah, that's totally going to work. Seriously, you can't make people not cry. So what kind of funeral do you want?

Hubby: I don't know. I really don't want one.

Me: Oh, that won't fly. Your family would be really pissed at me if I did nothing. You have to have something.

Hubby: *grumbling* fine

Me: You know that you could have a Catholic funeral because you were Baptized Catholic.

Hubby: How bout I just have a Jewish funeral. Aren't those more joyful parties?

Me: One problem. You don't go to a Temple. Now I would do that for you if you did, but since you don't I think it would be odd for me to go contact a Rabbi. I also don't think they are "joyful parties."

Hubby: *thinks a minute* I guess I could have a Catholic funeral, but I'm not really Catholic.

Me: You could have a Baptist funeral since that's what you were.

Hubby: No, I really don't want a Baptist funeral.

Me: Okay.

Time passes.

Hubby: Maybe I'll have a Muslim funeral.

Me: Again that would require you to attend a Muslim service, which you don't. And I'm not about to contact an Imam for a person who is not Muslim especially since I'm not a Muslim and you've never attended a service.

Hubby: You don't have to attend a service to be a Muslim do you? I thought you only had to say a prayer.

Me: Yes, that's true. *pause in conversation* The problem is that you don't plan on attending any of these services. But the one church services that you do attend happen to be Catholic. You could have a Catholic funeral.

Hubby: Oh, alright. Fine. I'll have a Catholic funeral. But can I be cremated?

Me: Yes, I can have you cremated if that's what you want.

A couple days later.

Hubby: So I want to be cremated. I'm going to assume you want a Catholic funeral.

Me: Yes.

Hubby: Do you want to be buried?

Me: No, cremated.

Hubby: Okay. What should I do for HB if you know you both die and I'm all that's left.

Me: Bury him.

Hubby: Bury him?

Me: Yep, give him a Catholic funeral and bury him.

Hubby: Okay.

What do you mean "there are married Catholic priests?"

2011-11-09T23:04:00.000-08:00

Hubby: What do you mean there are "married Catholic priests" who have always been Catholic? I thought you could only be married if you converted.

Me: Nope. There are married Catholic priests. The Byzantine's are married. And it's a small t tradition. It can be reversed in the Latin Rite.

Hubby: Huh? The Byzantine Church isn't Catholic. They're...what's it called...

Me: Orthodox? No they're Catholic. Not Orthodox.

Hubby: What? Didn't they split from Rome? Aren't they Orthodox?

Me: No, they never "split from Rome." They are Catholic.

Hubby: You mean they follow the Pope?

Me: Yep. They follow the Pope.

Hubby: But they're not Catholic? *even more puzzled look on his face*

Me: No, dear. They are Catholic.

Hubby: Then what are you?

Me: Catholic.

Hubby: You mean Roman Catholic.

Me: Yes, but they are Roman Catholic too since they follow the Pope.

Hubby: *even more confused* So what are you then?

Me: You mean what's different?

Hubby: *nods his head*

Me: I'm a Latin Rite Catholic. They follow the Byzantine Rite.

Hubby: *extremely puzzled* Okay how's that different from being Roman Catholic?

Me: *chuckles* The rite is how you worship. We believe the same things, but our services are different and some of our traditions.

Hubby: *trying to make sense of it* But doesn't mean that they are orthodox or something?

Me: No, dear. They follow the Pope, they didn't split off, and they are Catholics too. The Latin Rite is the largest group so everyone thinks of them. But the Eastern Rite is Catholic too. It's culturally based. The Latin is largely European. And the Marronites, for example, are mostly Lebanese descent. Etc.

Hubby: But I thought they were like Orthodox. I'm confused.

Me: No, they aren't orthodox.

Hubby: So how does it work? Did some of them leave and others not?

Me: Basically. They (historians) set a date, but there's no solid time when it splittered. It happened over time. We were all one Church with many bishops. The Bishop of Rome (the Pope) was the head Bishop but the Orthodox wanted to their Bishops to rule their churches separately and have no one head Bishop. The Eastern Catholics agreed that the Bishop of Rome is supreme and the Orthodox Bishops don't. Understand?

Hubby: I guess so.

Seven Musings

2011-11-08T22:19:00.000-08:00

1) Yesterday we went to the dentist for HB. We've been putting it off. I got the ad from the bulletin, but didn't realize that we're about equ-distant from each office and it's a bit aways. The dentist was nice though. Even gave us a couple of recommendations after we asked for adult dentists in the area. Commended us on the upkeep of HB's teeth. The dentist was mostly interested in looking for cavities (ie bottle rot) and broken teeth. Told us to bring HB again in 6 months for another inspection and wouldn't worry about an actual cleaning until he turned three when apparently he (like many other children) start getting normal tarter build-up.

For those who don't know what bottle rot is, it's basically this (I won't post it since it's so bad). To prevent it you don't put anything but water in a bottle for baby to sleep with. You want to diligently clean their teeth and gums as best as possible (chewing is fine for toddlers apparently). And you want to hold off on sugar foods and particularly liquids. Our pediatricians asks us every time if we give HB juice, which is really really rare. Soda is also one to avoid. A lot of our friends are big into the juice thing and I just tell them we only give him milk or water. I'm trying hard not to lecture people because it only serves to make them more defiant. Better to hear it from their own pediatrician than me. Oh and I should mention that the juice we give HB is minimal because we dilute it heavily with water. I'll admit that I do share my sodas from time to time with HB. If we're home, I'll pour out a little for him and save the rest for myself. It's mostly ice anyway.

2) Chiropractor went well. My hip is pretty bad as is my back although normal for pregnancy, but what surprised me was my neck. He said it was swollen and asked me if I'm on the computer a lot. Not really. I thought about it later and I do look down at HB when he nurses so that may be the reason. He gave me an adjustment, but forewarned me that because of my expanding body and shifty ligaments I will hurt again soon. So he said to come back twice a week for two weeks and once a week for the last two weeks. He said after giving birth when all the hormones come down he should be able to put me back into place properly. During the adjustment he popped my neck and then my back twice. He had me lay through one of those special tables on my stomach (woot!) and then adjusted my hip. When I got into the car the first thing I noticed was I could turn around and look behind me to back up. What I've had to do lately is to turn, do a cursory glance, and then rely on the mirrors (which I hate since it's not safe). But today my hip started misbehaving and as soon as I got home my back bothered me again. Still it will help put things back into alignment over time. Also he gave great advice on how to lay down (which I knew from last pregnancy) but also how to sit to keep my hips in better shape and to sit in a chair. He told me not to elevate my feet, which is totally what they tell you to do to reduce swelling especially after giving birth. Woops! I think next pregnancy I am totally going to see a chiro earlier rather than later. And don't worry he specializes in family care (especially preggos like me). He has three children. Kinda a young guy but knows his stuff.

3) This is sort of a series of interesting things I've read recently: Mississippi voters did not pass the Personhood Amendment. The Diocese of Jackson (which I used to belong to and had all the sacraments save marriage there) opted to let it fall on the conscious of the parishioners. There reasoning as stated in the Bishop's letter is because 1)we're pro-life and this is a pro-life stance but 2) if it passed on a state level it would give the federal government the go-ahead to quash it as defined by Roe v Wade. The Bishops are already taking measures to over-turn Roe v Wade on a federal level and so the amendment could potentially thwart their efforts. Here's his letter. I'm not sure what kind of Bishop he is because he was not the bishop I had growing up.

Other groups such as the Episcopal Diocese and United Methodist's opposed the bill. Oddly the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest congregant-wise denomination in Mississippi, supported the bill. I say odd because as far as I know the SBC isn't opposed to the use of birth control like the morning-after pill or fertility treatments such as IVF for which this bill would/could limit the use of since the bill says from the moment of conception (which would mean that you can't use the morning after pill since it's purpose it to stop implantation). Here's an article on it.

I could say a few nasty things about my quibbles with the SBC since a large part of the harassment I experienced as a Catholic was due to ignorant ministers, but I'll stop myself since I still have a few educated and fair-minded friends who still are apart of that organization (which I wish they weren't). I was always thankful that they at least knew enough or would be open to listening rather than summarily deciding that I should go to hell since I worshiped statues, the Virgin Mary, prayed to saints, and a whole host of false things that somehow meant I didn't worship Jesus and wasn't a true Christian. Okay, I guess I did go there. But I'm not the only one. My best friend in highschool who was Lutheran (as in started the Protestant Reformation) was told that she was one of those denominations that worshiped the devil by a SBC member. We had a lot of pleasant comparisons about how we were both going to hell because we weren't SBC. And now you understand my quibbles.

4) This post popped up into my reading. It's from a Protestant minister's wife (who actually is interested in Catholicism). It's about spanking or rather how about two years ago she stopped and why (this is an old post).

5) Michelle Duggar announces that she's pregnant with baby number 20. There's also a video explaining how she gets her children to learn how to sit still. I should mention that she doesn't say anything about spanking. And she has 19 plus kids.

6) Texas Judge lets his spanking get out of hand. He does say "beating" and does threaten to "beat her in the face" and to "beat her into submission." It's actually quite hard to watch and involves a lot of language. I'm not sure how anyone would actually want to spank their child after that. I should mention that she also has cerebral palsy.

Interview

Actual Spanking

And this sort of thing happens a lot. Which is why I have no intention of even using spanking. As Hubby pointed out "isn't sixteen a little old to be spanking." And some people draw the line at belts.

7) Saw this recently. Really really really gross.

I've been at this McDonald's before (at least it looks familiar the news doesn't give an actual location) and they have a key code to use the bathroom because as the fellow patron told me "of the local highschool across the street." Maybe I'm a little prejudicial but it's really silly to place restrictions on using the bathroom simply because of hs students. Isn't that just another form of age discrimination to say that because they are in hs they are delinquents? Some of the students I taught were also tired of being harassed because teenagers get a bum rap. Yeah, not really fair. Should mention that the McD's rules say nothing about bringing food into the play areas only to remove your shoes. I think they need to update those.

Shameless Popery and Margret Sanger

2011-11-06T22:36:00.000-08:00

Please scroll down and read the previous post for context. Thank you.

Okay, where was I? Oh, yes. Margret Sanger's remarks. Let's tackle the first one about marriage being about love and begetting children as being secondary. Let me say that is totally wrong. Shameless Popery tackles this subject oh so well in the context of gay marriage. I invite you to read his article and I will steal parts of it (if he doesn't object) to place it in this context.

First of all, most relationships are surrounded by love. I love my children. I love my parents. I love my neighbors (even though I keep find cigarettes on the patio which is right below their balcony). You get the point. I'm not going to have children with any of these people that I have these love relationships with.

The difference between a marriage relationship and that of any other relationship is not love it's having children. Margret Sanger can disagree, but it's totally not logical. Why get married if you are uninterested in having children and only interested in love? You can receive love even romantic love outside the confines of a marriage. I've received romantic love outside of marriage. It's called "dating." If you only interest in getting married is to have sex, well then you've missed the boat and I'm not quite sure how to row you ashore.

The point of marriage as quoted by Joe from Canon Law is a partnership ordered around the good of the spouse and the procreation and education of children. In other words, the Catholic Church does not say that you must be in love with a person in order to marry them. You must not harm them or cause them to fall into anything bad (pimping out your spouse or forcing them to deal drugs for example), but you don't have to have the romantic notion of love. You only have to agree to take care of each other's welfare and to have children and raise them together. That's it.

In fact I think our notions of marriage have come a long way. We used to treat women as property or arrangements to promote the family in social status. Now we view marriage as a partnership of mutual respect. Unfortunately, as a going-through-a-divorce friend has explained the vast majority of people he meets in his recently divorced program are divorced because they fell out of love or don't love their ex. (He is divorced for a different reason than that which is why he was so surprised that about half stated that their reason for divorce was no longer being in love.)

Margret Sanger's culture of birth control is raining down on our heads. Marriage is no longer about children and agreeing to remain together. It's about the fleeting feelings of love.

Switching gears...

Margret Sanger said that the greatest sin in the world is for diseased parents to bring diseased children into the world. I had to take a breath on this one. She basically lists prisoners as being an example. I'll remind you of my previous post discussing children and the nature vs nurture controversy. How a child turns out in life is not solely determined by the parentage they've had nor is it solely determined by the circumstances under which they were raised. It certainly means that adult person had to overcome a great deal in order to be a model citizen, but does not determine a person's self-worth. Here Sanger summarily dismisses any child borne by a prisoner as being a sin since they have "no chance in the world to being human practically."

Furthermore she equates being born with a disease as having no chance at "being human". I believe that by virtue of our dna we are human. But okay, let's say she means something more metaphysical. Breathe. I had to take a huge breath on this one and remind myself that this interview happened in 1957 and not 2011. In 1957 children born with handicaps (I don't know what's pc anymore so sorry if offend) were largely institutionalized. They were put away and not incorporated into society and therefore treated with less dignity than other "humans."

We've come a long way in society as to how we treat and dignify persons with disabilities. More research has been done in that field and we've learned that children and adults with disabilities thrive and are happier if they are integrated into society as best as can be. Sanger would not naturally know any of this. Instead she would see, at that time, that the only truly dignified way to not institutionalize a child is to not have the child in the first place. Modern society has proved that Sanger is totally incorrect. Children with disabilities have much to contribute to society and therefore are "being human."

So hindsight is 20/20, Sanger took the wrong path. She put her opinion down as eliminating the person and not looking at eliminating the problem (that is research into disabilities and encouraging families to care for their children at home rather than institutionalizing them). This is why she can say that she is a "humanitarian" who can't stand to see cruelty and unnecessary suffering (although abortion is totally an unnecessary suffering). In her deluded mindset, she was helping.

And this is the fundamental problem of abortion because of circumstance. We kill the unborn because of rape and incest rather than doing research into it and eradicating the cause. We kill the unborn because of disabilities rather than focusing on the abilities or providing more advanced health care (which is what the March of Dimes does). We encourage the use of birth control and the romantic love mindset instead of focusing on the primary function of marriage. The list goes on like this.

It's twisted how the Margret Sanger mindset and ideology has infiltrated society to the point of being "normal" when clearly in 1957 it was anything but normal. Funny how time has changed. But I suppose that you noticed this since the interview hugely pushed Philip Morris cigarettes big time and now Philip Morris has had to pay out a lot of money and basically run PSAs on how to stop smoking. Sorry, Phil, glad to say I've never touched your cigarettes in my life other than to throw the butts I find on my porch in the trash (although I think I'm going to save them and show them to my neighbor as I suspect her roommate is not using the ash tray).

March of Dimes and Margret Sanger

2011-11-06T21:44:00.000-08:00

I haven't been blogging much. My back has been killing me so naturally I haven't wanted to do much sitting and blogging for any amount of time. I've been so neglectful lately that I haven't e-mailed anyone. I just read it and my brain goes "der dader dader" and won't work right. I'm hoping that the chiropractor tomorrow can relieve some of this pain because if it isn't my back than it's my hip.

But I thought that despite the pain I would give this a bit of a whirl since it's been a while for me and usually I post something once a day.

Yesterday was just one of those days where things kinda "spoke" to me. I dropped Hubby at work and took HB that morning to a consignment sale at my parish. It was kids and maternity. I got a couple of toys for HB and some shirts for the summer even though it's turned a little chilly around here. I managed okay despite feeling like my hip was going to pop out of joint of something. We later picked Hubby up and I felt inspired to get them shoes. You see my husband bikes into work and he's hard on his shoes. My son is growing so he needed new shoes too. So off we went to the shoe store where I bought HB a pair of converse shoes made in Vietnam. Yes, I'm not a fan of Vietnam, but I'm more interested in protesting China.

The point...yes. Well the store was taking donations for the March of Dimes. You know that organization geared toward helping fund research into prematurity and birth defects. While controversial to some, they take a neutral position on the abortion issue. Anyways we went to the register to pay for the shoes and there were several stuffed beanie babies wearing premature infant diapers, which resembled maxi pads. There was also two pictures one of an infant born after only 24 weeks gestation and another picture of the same boy at age 5 walking with the aid of crutches.

It was totally amazing to me and I told HB that his little brother is much bigger than that baby in the picture. I also remembered a discussion not to long ago on the blog Shameless Popery that I got into with a clearly pro-abortionist. He tried to make the case that unless an unborn infant can live outside the womb they are not really human and can be aborted. Something about needing to be conscious and aware and self-sustaining. At the time I was horrified that this person basically said that my unborn child was not human and could be aborted, in his opinion, up until the 28th week of life. I explained to him that there have been a number of cases where children survive much earlier than that (he said it was likely due to IVF and other fertility treatments therefore they were older "embryos"). And that with technology always improving the odds of even younger gestation infants surviving are increasing. I also mentioned that our research into the unborn is still advancing. We've only recently discovered that even unborn children as young as 30 weeks gestation have memories.

So when I saw this picture of the boy at 24 weeks and now 5 years walking around with aid, I wanted to jump up and down and do the "I told you so, you moron" dance. Here was a picture of living proof that this pro-abortionist is burying his head in the sand. This tiny person was born before 28 weeks and lived and is thriving. How absurd is it to say that abortions in the 2nd trimester are "okay" because the baby will not survive.

Fast forward to yesterday evening. I was up with a case of insomnia and went and looked at some recent news. A blogger had recently posted an interview between Margret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, and Mike Wallace from 1957 along with commentary. I watched the interview and anticipated all the remarks the blogger spoke about. There were two things that absolutely floored me. I'll talk about it some here and then (because this post is a bit lengthier than I anticipated) I'll post some more in a minute.

Here's the two comments:

WALLACE: Well the natural law they [the Catholic Church] say is that first of all the primary function of sex in marriage is to beget children. Do you disagree with that?

SANGER: I disagree with that a hundred percent.

WALLACE: Your feeling is what then?

SANGER: My feeling is that love and attraction between men and women, in many cases the very finest relationship has nothing to do with bearing a child. It's secondary. Many, many times and we know that --you see your birth rates and you can talk to people who have very happy marriages and they're not having babies every year. Yes, I think that's a celibate attitude...

and this one made my eyes bulge out of my head

WALLACE: Do you believe in sin -- When I say believe I don't mean believe in committing sin do you believe there is such a thing as a sin?

SANGER: I think the greatest sin in the world is bringing children into the world--that have disease from their parents, that have no chance in the world to be a human being practically. Delinquents, prisoners, all sorts of things just marked when they're born. That to me is the greatest sin -- that people can -- can commit..

Nine Musings

2011-10-31T23:01:00.000-07:00

1) So Hubby is switching around his calendar to take Mondays off and work Saturdays, which is nice. It helps me free up time for help with things like HB's dentist appointment and my chiropractic appointment. Pregnancy at this late stage is killer on my body. I can't sit for any length of time without considerable pain and if I've been laying down for too long, I tend to have trouble moving around. A friend had gone during her pregnancy and said it helped a ton. And then I mentioned my back pain to the group (since I missed a session because I knew I couldn't endure an hour and half of sitting), a lady there mentioned her chiro does prenatal chiro and recommended him. So I'm hoping that this will help me out. Now if only I could sleep better at night.

2) HB is getting oh, so good with signing. He signs sentences now. Daddy's at work. And one he's been interested in saying lately is Mommy and Daddy (what it means exactly I don't know but that's what he says). He also knows a few animals: duck, cat, spider (it's not the asl version but it works), dog (a shorter asl version), and bird. He also sings a lot. He can dance to Looby Loo or attempts to. He's figured out that there is more to it than moving one of his arms correctly and spinning. He still babels, but every once and a while I hear an actual word. Signing is what he feels most comfortable in. It keeps him from screaming. Tonight at dinner his dad asked him if he was "all done" or wanted something "different." He signed different, but dad mistook it for all done. Then he screamed until I told Hubby that he said different and not all done. So he calmed down after that. Toddlers really want to be understood.

3) We trick or treated for UNICEF again this year. We did okay considering half the complex is made up of college students. One door we knocked on the poor girl was crying because her fiance had dumped her. I felt bad for her almost wanted to scoop her up and tell her to join us on our charitable fun, but it seemed that she wanted to go back and cry some more.

4) Also took HB to a community carnival on Saturday. It was a family event, but as you can well imagine some of the adults I think should have been a little bit more thoughtful in their costume choice. Some of them were just plain scary. Why would you pick something like that to wear around little children? Each of the booths set up were for non-profits (mostly). The Le Leche League chapter had a cake walk and the Knights of Columbus had some sort of carni game involving a football. We stuck to some easy ones like the fishing pole and pulling a duck out of the water. It was fun. You bought tickets (a quarter a piece) and each of the organizations used the event to earn money.

5) Speaking of Halloween, I came across this from a Christian headcovering site.
10-21-10 Please note: Due to my personal convictions I will not sell coverings to someone if I know they will be used for costuming purposes for Halloween. There may be cases where I wouldn't mind a costume in general as long as it is used in a Godly and respectful way...but a Halloween costume is not among them. I do not mean to offend or hurt anyone's feelings, but I am adamantly opposed to that holiday and what it stands for. I prefer that my covering sewing time be used for making coverings that are to be worn for Biblical purposes. This is obviously something that must be on your individual honor as I do not always know what a person may place their order for. It only just occurred to me that someone might wish to order for that reason and I just felt led to post this as a policy, especially as it is that time of year.

I suppose my question would be what does she think the holiday "stands for" exactly. I'm almost tempted to shoot her an e-mail or something and ask her. Do you think that's a good idea or should I just not step into it since she didn't really open herself up into a theological or evangelizing session?

The reason is that contrary to popular belief Halloween is not a pagan holiday and doesn't have pagan origins. A lot of people like to try and tie it to the Celts since the Celts have a holiday around this time of year. But Halloween is a contraction of the word All Hallows Eve (much like Christmas means Christ and Mass). It simply means the day before All Saints Day. Basically it's like Christmas Eve.

All Saints Day is about celebrating those in heaven. Nov. 2 is All Souls Day which is supposed to be a day of prayer for those in purgatory and those here on earth yet to be judged.

Unfortunately a number of Protestants have never liked the holiday. Early on you were looked down as a "Papist" for celebrating it. Now it's because it's a celebration of the "occult" or "witchcraft" which is silly because that whole part of it is largely commercialized and not true. Some choose to use the holiday to save souls with exhibition of Hell Houses. This is a nice thought, but totally missing out on what the holiday is supposed to be about, which is a celebration/ party for those in heaven. No need to bash people over the head with a stick over salvation when we have a good number of models for heaven. The vast majority of Protestants view it as simply being a secular holiday, which again it's not.

I'm guess the lady thinks the holiday is a celebration of the occult or paganism. But who knows.

6) '7 Billionth' Babies World wide- You'd think from the title that they were saying that 7 Billion babies have been born recently or that this is the 7 Billionth baby born on earth. But neither is true. The babies being born mark the 7 billion people alive on earth currently. The article is deeply skewed. You'd think we were over populated or something. What they should start talking about is the fact that a large percentage of the population is over the age of 65. In fact there are predictions that say that there will soon be more people age 65 plus than 5 and under in the next few years. Yet we're fixated on the number of children born which is declining as the reason for the large world wide population. Really people should be focusing on the seniors. Let's get rid of them. We need a big euthanasia fest since seniors burden society. Right? Just Kidding. It's a lot easier to pick on people for having children than to pick on people who are already here. Both groups are valuable, but people won't start realizing that until their SS checks start getting too small to live off of.

7) And the Leak in our bathroom is supposed to be fixed with awesome calk. Yeah. Not really buying that one. But okay. We'll see if that's going to be the case. I'm sure our neighbor upstairs is upset about not being able to use his bathroom shower.

8) As always fascinated by the Duggar's, I recently read an interview where it seems that they practice Gentle Discipline of sorts. She says that her children are allowed to tell her when she's being angry (I suppose outside of righteous anger which is different). And she says that she taught them early on to work out their problems themselves before coming to mom to fix it. It was very interesting. She's also a big fan of all children doing their share around the house. And (I really don't know how she can handle this) she only sleeps 6 hours at night. I'd be functional, but not chipper with that little amount. I'm not sure how she handles the late night trips to the bathroom toilet during pregnancy because I don't get 6 hours straight but maybe collectively these days.

9) Oh, I'm so looking forward to Advent. Aren't you? I wish it was colder here, but alas I will deal with the heat as best as possible. Something about Advent makes me think of snow. That and there are only two weeks left to "go for launch" time. That is if I go into labor that early I can deliver. But I doubt I'll give birth then. Little brother is happy to stay right where he is despite the jabs from older brother.

Movie Review: For the Bible Tells Me So

2011-10-29T01:56:00.000-07:00

So one night I was up late and came across a netflix movie, For the Bible Tells Me So. The description states that the movie is about how Christians use Biblical passages to justify "human rights abuses." So I'm thinking like racial issues, women's issues, etc. etc.

Boy, was I wrong. The whole thing is talking about homosexuality. The main focus was on several different American families who discovered that their child was gay. A lot of it explored the Episcopal take on several Biblical passages about homosexuality (only actually tackling the ones in Leviticus and Romans and ignoring the creation story as well as Jesus's own dialogues about marriage). And the Evangelical take on homosexuality.

At one point they mentioned the Roman Catholic Church's stance, but breezed past it since the focus was on either homosexuality being totally okay or should we stone homosexuals like Lev. says too. I was upset to see that the RC was portrayed as bigoted without much explanation that there is middle ground. You can have same-sex attraction without acting upon it. Unfortunately, a number of church's view even SSA as being sinful rather than disordered.

The most horrifying part was a cartoon clip in the middle of the movie (yes, I watched the whole thing figuring it's good research). They brought up a number of problems people have with homosexuality and countered it.

Natural law: "It's unnatural for people of the same gender to have sex" The movie's response "you will find a number of species engaging in homosexual sex" My response: Yes, and you will also find a number of species having sex with their young ie children, with dead animals, inter species sex, coercive sex ie rape, and sex after which they eat the male ie murder after sex. If these things are all supposed to be "okay" because they happen in the animal kingdom why do we have so many laws against them? Is it because perhaps we have a conscious and animals don't? We recognize that having sex with a child is not okay. We recognize murder after copulation is also not okay. Sorry, this response to what is "natural" doesn't really hold water.

Born this way: The movie sites a number of studies about male homosexuals being born gay. Two things they talk about is the "gay gene." These studies typically involve twins and how the odds are higher that both will be gay (pointing to some sort of gene connection despite there not being one gene found). The problem is that the participates were usually openly gay and thus skewing the results. They also picked twins who were mono-mono twins and thus shared the same sack and placenta and not other types of twins like mono-di or di-mono or di-di twins. They also looked at the history of gays and those in the family who were gay which seems to be linked to the paternal side, but no conclusively.

The other thing they like to say is that birth order makes a difference. Supposedly if you've had one boy the odds of each subsequent boy being gay are 33 % higher. (I'm not sure how you can explain that to my family since neither of my mother's two brothers are gay, my grandfather and his brother were not gay, and I could go on from there). The theory is that because you are male in a female's body the antibodies produced have an affect on the second boy. The second boy becomes "feminized" as the movie says (insulting to second and subsequent males born). This theory doesn't hold water since, as I pointed out, if this was true there would be a higher incidence of homosexuality. And well there isn't. So obviously antibodies attacking the baby doesn't hold water.

And because there is no absolute certainly only a few controversial studies, most scientists conclude that it's really a combination of things that could prove that gay men are born this way: genes, hormones, and environment. So is really a person born this way? Obviously the research into born this way ideology is very small, but so far the movie and other homosexual behavior propaganda has made these studies sound more conclusive than they really are.

All in all, this movie was terrible. It portrayed Christians as a bunch of bigoted idiots who can't embrace their children unless they fall for the homosexual agenda hook line and sinker. It's disgusting bias about homosexuality was worse.

The Bible says that you also shouldn't lie. I think the movie did a good job of stretching the truth or obscuring it to make homosexual behavior out to be a "human right's abuse" issue.

Abstract Thinking: Cognitive Development in Young Children

2011-10-26T23:54:00.000-07:00

A lot of the discipline books that I read tend to wobble on explaining cognitive development of humans. There's a level of disagreement as to how capable a child is of understanding things at different ages. This is due to the fact that psychologists and sociologists are still studying brain development in young children. It's also the reason why HB and I did so many different studies particularly on language acquisition. How do children learn language? Do they chunk stuff together? Can they learn syntax if exposed to it? etc. etc. According to some of the studies we took part in, children do learn syntax even for made up languages. But how they measure these things is based on how long a child stares at something. So are any of the experiments even accurate?

This is why so many discipline books focusing on specific age groups disagree. Sometimes new research comes out and sometimes it's simply because.

There are some definitive things that a parent should understand about cognitive development in regard to discipline.
1) You can't set your behavioral expectations for something clearly beyond a child's development. Meaning there is no way you can expect your child to have a political discussion with you at age 5 but you can at age 15. So you have to tailor your disciplinary measures to that.
2) You need to know the basics of normal cognitive development for each age group (or for your particular child's special cognitive needs) before you can determine what's the best course of discipline.
3) To find out this information, talk to pediatricians, experts in child cognition, and read books on that subject alone. Yes, I've just told you to read more. Sorry. Parenting is a job unto itself. And it does require a modicum of research. Usually pediatricians are good about handing out this stuff without you realizing it. It comes with those questionnaires that say, "at what age did junior roll over" ie physical development with stuff that says "is your child able to speak two word sentences?" cognitive development. You should ask for more information since in these instances the pediatrician is looking for abnormalities and not telling you exactly what is normal.

So briefly what is normal development? There are a number of different cognitive theories out there. Google Piaget for one. But I'll break it down into two basics: concrete and abstract thinking

Concrete thinking involves using your senses. Infants are born scientists and use their senses to understand their world around them. Object permanence, or the ability to know that something is there even though it's hidden, is still a part of the concrete thinking stage. Concrete thinking continues all the way up through to adults.

Abstract thinking begins far later in cognitive development. Abstract thinking involves abstract concepts. For example, time, death, love, manners, empathy, fairness, etc. Experiments show that children do not even begin development in this stage until around the ages of 5 and 6. If you take two identical pitchers of water and two glasses of different sizes (short and fat versus tall and skinny), you ask a three year old is the water the same. They would say yes. Then you pour from those pitchers into the glasses and again ask the three year old if the glasses have the same amount of water, they would tell you no. As the same question to a six year old, and they could tell you that yes it's the same. Unless you spilled some, which during this particular experiment happened and the six year old explained that's why they couldn't be exactly the same.

This explains why telling a toddler that it's time to go causes a temper tantrum. They simply don't understand time. You also can't expect them to share toys because they really can't empathize that someone else is without.

Does this mean that you don't teach (or discipline) children these concepts until the age of 5? No. This does, however, mean that it's an unreasonable expectation on the part of the parents to have the child behave "properly" when it comes to abstract concepts every time. Sure you can teach them to share toys with their sibling. But they may only share one particular toy. Or they may not share with others. Or more importantly, they don't understand why they need to share. They also, I might add, can't transfer something they've learned to something mean everything. For example, if you tell them the coffee is hot, they will learn not to touch the coffee. But if you say the plate is hot, they may still be tempted anyway because even though they know what hot feels like they can't transfer the behavior. Does that make sense?

Okay back to abstract thinking. How do you teach a child abstract concepts? You do two things: model the behavior that you want and make the abstract concept as concrete as possible. Again you must understand that is not perfect. The idea is that you are teaching them the basics with the hope that once they reach abstract thinking age they can refine their behavior.

Model the behavior means to model the behavior. Take the concept of manners. In my house, we say "please" and "thank you" to everyone. I say it to my son. I say it to my husband. Etc. My child does not understand manners: what they are or why they are important. He does, however, understand that this is how we talk to each other in society so as part of his social development he has learned to use them too. It would, however, be unreasonable of us to expect him to remember to say "please" and "thank you" all the time. That's why you hear parents prompting children often say "thank you." So I'm not going to punish him or cajole him or admonish him or reward him if he does or does not say "thank you." It would be unreasonable to do so. I will however praise him to reinforce the behavior, but that's how you teach socialization or any behavior.

Let's look at making an abstract concept concrete with two examples: love and time. Love is a hard concept for an adult to grasp let alone a child. The most concrete way of showing love is affection: kisses, hugs, high fives, and those sorts of physical things as well as verbal praise go a long way. Time is another big one that parents run into with toddlers. Using a visual or auditory timer and teaching the child the expectation that once it makes a sound something will happen helps a lot. This also helps with the concept of sharing since you can teach a child to take turns.

Does a child not being able to understand abstract concepts make him/her selfish or unloving etc.? No. It's part of every human being's development. We all have gone through these stages too. It's important to recognize that children aren't stupid but they aren't little adults either. You really have to think of them as a different type of human being in order to teach them, to shape them into the type of human being you want them to be.

one night, two posts aka Parenting again

2011-10-25T23:21:00.000-07:00

Now that I've confessed the thing that's been eating at me this evening....let's talk about something else. How about more parenting stuff?

How do you choose a parenting philosophy?

Well, you don't. That is to say, you don't want to strictly adhere to one particular parenting philosophy. I, personally, feel that you should read a lot and glean as much information about a number of parenting philosophies. Why?

Well, a friend of mine said to me once that you can fix anything with duct tape and WD40. (Can it fix the leak in my ceiling that I discovered today? Having a bad day, sorry.) Yes, they are good "fixes." But if a plumber showed up at your door with only those two items, you'd probably not hire him again. Most plumbers walk in with the main tools in their belt or tool box. They access the problem. If they discover that your leaking ceiling seriously needs something else then what they brought in (perhaps a new drainage system for the shower in the apartment above us), then they probably have that in the "truck" or will order it.

To me it's like parenting. Yes there are two things that can work for most any situation, but you wouldn't be a good parent if that's all that's in your tool box. And hopefully, you've read enough or are willing to read outside your comfort zone to find something else should those tools that you come equipped with not fix the situation.

Shouldn't one parenting philosophy be better than the others? Certainly there are some parenting philosophy's that are better than the others and some that are worse. Joshua Komisarjevsky, whose on trial for a killing a woman and her two daughters during a home invasion, can attest to the fact that some parenting philosophies are borderline abusive.

However, it's easy to root out the stinky parenting philosophies from those that you should have in your tool box. Research them. If you find the media has reported on how one particular parenting philosophy (*cough* the Pearls) is linked to a child's death, then I suggest you not even bother. Other's, like Dobson's book The Strong-Willed Child, are more controversial. The title doesn't necessarily tell you everything, but it can clue you in. Things like "gentle" or "positive" in the title are talking about one style of parenting. And obviously "strong-willed" evokes something else, but not necessarily something to disregard. I would read people's reviews, particularly the views of someone raised in that style. I would also read the book having those reviews in mind. You may find there is something if only one thing that might be helpful and the rest purely garbage.

How do you know if it's garbage? Well, if it's not working for you then it's garbage. If it doesn't make sense to you or doesn't fit in with your family particularly your child's personality, then it's garbage. Don't continue to use stuff that isn't working. If you've given it a good try, then it's time to try something else.

Why have a bunch of tools? Because every child is different and every family is different. There's a whole debate about nurture versus nature. So no one parenting philosophy is going to fit perfectly with every child in your household.

Segue to Nature versus Nurture

Now I've said this before, that I was spanked. And obviously I turned out just fine. A lot of people say this. A lot of people like Joshua grew up in strict households or were abused. Not all of them are in jail cells. Would you say that molesting a child is a great parenting style because the vast majority of those children aren't criminals? No, of course not. Child molestation is horrible. The likelihood of a person under Joshua's circumstances turning to a life of crime is certainly higher, but no more definitive for an individual then a child who grew up in a loving nurturing household growing up to be the mayor. Sometimes nature plays a role too.

I'm sure you've heard it yourself. "I just don't understand how Sally could have turned out so bad. Her parents were so great with her." Yes, one could speculate that maybe Sally's parents sexually abused her under the nose of her neighbors. But it's also just as likely that they were great parents and Sally just has other physical issues. Perhaps Sally is bi-polar. Perhaps Sally experience abuse at the hands of someone else. Raising a child isn't as simple as checking a box. We all spend a lot of time on our knees hoping that no matter what happens we don't screw them up for life or that life doesn't screw them up or that whatever they will physically struggle with, God will help them overcome it. Just ask St. Monica. If there's anyone to emulate about how to deal with a child, that's the person. Get on your knees. Forget about which particular parenting philosophy to follow. They are meant to be tools, but they are not cure-alls.

2 blog posts, one night

2011-10-25T22:38:00.000-07:00

So here is my dilemma. We asked some friends of Hubby's if they would like to be the godparents. One of the pair is a Catholic and I was under the impression that the other was a Christian of sorts or like Hubby which as I explain to people who asked, baptized Catholic raised Baptist and currently confused. I don't mind having a Christian witness. It happens. When I asked what I should fill in for the "religion" question on the baptismal info, I received the response "N/A" and basically told what that meant. In other words, she's not really Christian.

I was a bit shocked, but tried to be short and to the point about the situation. You can't be a godparent if your not Catholic and you can't be a Christian witness if your not...a Christian. I said it nicer than that (I hope). I basically said that I could lie but I would seriously have to think about that.

I'm not big into lying. My parents sort of lied about my brother's godparents. They were both Baptists and technically you need at least one person to be Catholic. My parents knew this about my own Baptism, but as they explained nobody asked if they were Catholic or not. My brother's godparents are in the picture and are faithful Christians so they did well. My godparents: well, I've met my godfather once. He's now Episcopalian because he wanted a divorce. My godmother is my aunt. She's had a live in boyfriend for the longest. Not exactly the saint-like behavior needed from a godparent. So I don't really think of actually having godparents. When I got confirmed, I chose someone else to be my sponsor. Someone who was a faithful Catholic and very involved in the community.

Nobody asked specifically if Hubby was a Christian either. The priest asked about his upbringing ie was he baptized. So we told him the truth about that. He never asked specifically if Hubby was a Christian in the sense that he believed. Hubby is a Catholic by virtue of his baptism and has most of the privileges of any other Catholic if he so desires. As far as I know, Hubby's friend has no ties to Catholicism outside her husband and their marriage.

But here's the stinky part of it all: so these are Church rules about baptism. And they make sense. A godparent is supposed to be the spiritual guide for the child. I have a funny feeling that Hubby's friend will not see it that way and will think I'm opposed to the Christian witness thing simply because she's not a Catholic. We've had our run-ins before and I can see this being another occasion for one despite the fact that this is not really my decision. I could lie, but that isn't fair to compel me to lie. Nor is this about me really, it's about my son.

Having to get into a "fight" with a person because of something I don't really have any control over just stinks. Hubby will probably tell me to lie. But I really...really...really...can't. So I think I will have to ask someone else to be the godmother. Not looking forward to the next few conversations I'm going to be having.

Freezer Meals

2011-10-20T22:52:00.000-07:00

So my husband declared today that I am not 8 months pregnant. To which I arched an eye brow and said "Um... yes, I am. 8 times 4 equals 32. And I'm 32 weeks along." He kept arguing the point until I finally googled it, which said if you are 32-35 weeks then you are in your 8th month. Hence the "I'm 8 month's pregnant." He conceded saying it was too confusing and didn't make much sense. No it doesn't really make much sense because you don't say a child is one years old until they reach a full year. But with pregnancy it goes by what month your in, not what month you just completed.

But anyways...

Tomorrow we're going on a date. It's actually just a lecture. Our neighbor is willing to watch our child for a few hours. She's already met him so he should be okay, but we'll see. With the virus, we've been having a clingy kid. Although his poop is normal and his appetite is slowly coming back. Our neighbor lives above us. She's taking some classes so that she can enter the natural medicine department as a med student. Funny because she smokes, but maybe she's quitting.

I'm pretty proud of myself at the moment. I've been working like mad (not on all those crafty projects. Those can wait). I've been trying to catch up on my freezer meals. See the thing with freezing meals is that they only last 3 months in a standard freezer/refrigerator. If we had a deep freeze, I would have started this project sooner because things last longer in deep freeze. But alas, until we own an actual house (not a condo or an apartment), we are stuck. I started a list a month ago with everything we've eaten before that's frozen well.

Last pregnancy I shrugged it off. I bought a couple of packaged frozen meals and that was it. Thankfully the MOPS people brought food and my in-laws bought a bunch. Otherwise we would have been in for it. This time I'm better prepared to know just how much food my body will be scarfing down and the needs of Hubby and HB. Also my church will bring meals to us for a week. So I've decided to make 14 freezer meals in large batches for the following two weeks. Hopefully with big batches that will mean left overs that can be filled in with something simple like sandwiches. So I won't have to cook for most of a month. Theoretically.

I also plan on trying to get as much stuff frozen that we'll need as possible like side veggies, waffles, muffins, pumpkin bread, french bread (cause bread freezes well), texas toast, regular bread, and corn bread. I figure a quick trip to get perishables will be okay for Hubby and HB to do.

This is the list of meals in no particular order:
1) chili
2) cajun casserole
3) poppy seed chicken
4) skillet lasgna- which uses sausage
5) pot roast stew
6) potato soup
7) tortilla soup
8) mini meat loaves
9) chicken n' dumplings
10) gumbo
11) tuna casserole
12) pizza spaghetti
13) pizza casserole
14) chicken spaghetti

The great thing about having a list is that I can see what the main ingredients are and try to cook a couple of dishes that share similar things at once. Plus I can vary it up in case I run out of time. So in other words, I cook two meals a week (but I'm behind so it's been three). And of those two meals that I pick they are similar. Then the next week I can pick two different meals.

Better example: I cooked two vegetarian meals: potato soup and tuna casserole. Then this week I cooked chili and right now the mini meat loaves have just come out of the oven. I'm letting them cool before freezing them.

Next week I'm thinking about buying a whole chicken fryer and working on a couple of chicken meals. I'm thinking the chicken spaghetti because it's labor intensive for me and something simple like tortilla soup which requires little effort. I'll probably throw in the pot roast stew just to catch up.

The following week I'm thinking the cajun casserole, poppy seed chicken, and the skillet lasagne. They are the odd people out since the poppy seed chicken requires chicken breasts and not really chicken pieces. The cajun casserole has beef (the last one) and the skillet lasagna is the only one that requires ground sausage.

Of course I have to throw in the baking stuff too. I've made waffles enough for one breakfast and I've got all the stuff to make a couple of loaves of pumpkin bread. The french bread, regular bread, and texas toast I'll save for last since you can find them in a store (I don't plan on making them).

So there you have it. Lesson learned about preparing yourself for birth. Now I need to start thinking about breast pumps and sleep.

Falling off the Wall

2011-10-19T17:05:00.000-07:00

So I've been juggling a lot lately, but I thought I'd check in to tell you that I'm not in labor and I haven't died. Yet.

No, HB has had the runs and we took him to the pedi who said it was a virus and probably would take 7-14 days to run it's course. Which wouldn't be so bad, but I'm 8 months preggo and on the verge of.... of loosing it. I've already dealt with the cold. Now I get to deal with the constant demand to nurse because of an aching stomach right during the time when I need the nursing to slow up a bit.

My body hates me. Needless to say. But I'm trying to remember to eat more protein (as advised) and attempt to sleep. I say attempt because I've gotten to the point of sleeping on the couch. The bed and it's massive maternity pillow are no longer comfortable. This is what I did last pregnancy too although it resulted in a fretting Hubby who felt rejected. This time he waves me off to the couch saying "I hope you get some good sleep tonight." I'll try. It's getting up multiples times. The having to be somewhat awake to turn over. And the fact that my back is constantly hurting unless I am horizontal and even then it hurts somewhat.

It's getting to me. Can't you tell? It's getting to the point that I no longer want to leave my house with my child for fear of not being able to move fast enough. So Hubby has to stay home and help me take him to the doctor and help me go to my own doctor. Which has problems. It's a birth center. They cancel last minute. Then want to reschedule. Hubby groans looks at his schedule and declares he can't reschedule and if he is to, it has to be a certain day.

Oh, and I took a lovely nap with a weird dream involving me cooking ice cream. I don't get it either. But at some point something crashed and I discovered that a wall decoration fell off the wall. It was hanging above my head. Fortunately it hit the head board and stayed there otherwise you'd be hearing me bemoan a head ache accompanied with a giant bruise.

How many more weeks do I have? And how many more meals do I need to cook? I need a pay pal account set-up to take donations for "I can no longer clean my house and I need a nanny asap" People ask me which pregnancy was harder. It's definitely this one.

Education Psycology 101: Parenting Styles

2011-10-18T00:07:00.000-07:00

As I've mentioned before, I have a BME. Part of being an education major is having to take a lot of psychology courses. I took three: Psychology 101, which I think is a core class everyone has to take, Educational psychology, which was for all education majors, and Adolescent psychology, which was psychological study specifically geared toward those who were working in junior high and high school areas. Because I was a band-direction-in-training I didn't have to take elementary or early childhood psychology. But it doesn't really matter because for the most part, educational psychology is basic and the key to parenting.

Most parenting books don't really go a whole lot into education psychology or give an over view. They touch on certain psychologists and the field itself to influence their point, but they don't discuss any of it's history or anything relevant to parents. It's mostly all about here is our philosophy and here are some examples. This makes it difficult for parents to discern what's a good philosophy. I'll save that for another post. For now, let's just discuss the basics.

I also want to point out that education psychology is not an exact science. As my husband said, it's a psuedo-science. There are studies and evidence is collected but it's more subjective than other sciences. In this case, categorizing parenting styles is subjective and objective. One can observe how a person parents, but how to categorize whole groups of parents is subjective.

Now this is not something I've seen in a text book exactly but I believe that there is a difference between Parenting styles and Parenting philosophies. To me a parenting style is broken down into three basic groups (outside of neglect and abuse which is a parenting style in clinical terms but one that is not advocated by anyone). We'll discuss them momentarily. This is text book information. Basically they are over arching categories. A parenting philosophy, which isn't really outlined in a text book, is a more restrictive way to live out a parenting style. So let's get into what I mean exactly.

Parenting Styles:
Indulgent or Permissive- basically allowing a child to do whatever they want to. They respond to their child's needs, but do not make demands or has few expectations that their child will follow rules or guidelines. They are the doting parents who express love to their children.

Authoritarian- basically telling a child exactly what to do. Authoritarian parents demand that their children obey their authority without giving the children the ability to respond. Authoritarian parents rely heavily on punitive discipline and tend to exercise a great deal of spanking.

Now I want to say before mentioning the next style that neither permissive parenting or authoritarian parenting styles are considered to be forms of abuse or fall under the categories of abuse and neglect. As I mentioned that is a style of parenting unto itself. Permissive parents and authoritarian parents will not wind up having their children taken away from them by CPS. Both parenting styles fall perfectly within the realm of what is acceptable or normal. I will give examples of each type, but I want to make it clear before anyone starts saying that either parenting style is abuse that clinically it's not considered abuse.

Authoritative (don't get it confused with authoritarian they look similar)- is a style that is somewhere in between. Basically a child's needs are met and responded to. Children have the ability and are expected to learn how to deal with their emotions constructively And at the same time, there is a demand to follow rules as well as restrictions. Authoritative parenting is democratic, child-centered, and encourages independence appropriate to age level.

Now most education psychologists look at the pros and cons of these three parenting styles. They also look at the empirical evidence. Evidence shows this: most parents do not fall squarely into a particular parenting style. They tend to lean towards one more than the other, but show different aspects of each. Also the most recommended parenting style is authoritative. Children who grow up in authoritative households tend to not drink or get into trouble. I will talk a little bit about how this is a controversial statement when I discuss how to chose a parenting philosophy since that brings up the whole nurture versus nature debate.

Parenting Philosophies
I think are different than parenting styles from a clinical view point. Wikipedia lists them as alternative parenting styles, but I think that they are more like philosophies because it doesn't explain how a person parents as much as it explains why a person parents. For example, a person who follows the Pearl's parenting philosophy really is just using an authoritarian if not abusive parenting style (depending on what degree they follow the Pearl's book). They do so because they typically are Christian and they follow the Pearl's Biblical interpretation. In other words, they are authoritarian parents (how they parent) who use the Pearl's philosophy (which explains why they are authoritarian). Does that make sense?

Sorry if I seem a little loopy. It's late. I feel like an elephant and my son has had the runs all day. It's not going to be my most grammatically correct post ever.

So here is a list of parenting philosophies:
Gentle Discipline
Grace-based Discipline
Attachment Parenting
Strict Parenting
Overparenting
Concerting Cultivation
Pearl's Philosphies
Ezzo's Philosphies
Dr. Spock
Dr. Brazelton
Dr. Harvey Karp

Well, you get the idea. Everyone has a parenting philosophy that somehow fits into the three parenting styles in some shape or form. They include elements of each and tend to lean to one side or the other. An example of permissive parenting might be emotional coaching (although I'm not all that familiar with all aspects of this parenting philosophy). An example of authoritarian parenting would be the Pearl's or the Ezzo's. Authoritative parenting would be Dr. Brazelton or Concerting Cultivation.

So this is my parenting style: authoritarian (and I'm sure my husband would add with a hint of permissiveness) and my parenting philosophy is really a combination of attachment parenting, gentle discipline, and grace-based parenting. Throw in a dash of Dr. Harvey Karp and Dr. Ferber and you've pegged me. Because all the philosophies are similar and tend to fall into one of the parenting styles, then it's easy to see why a person can say they follow a number of different parenting philosophies.

So soon, I hope, we'll discuss how to pick a parenting philosophy and discuss the nurture versus nature debate. I will give you just a taste by saying people tend to blame the parent's choice in parenting style and thus look down on a parent if their child "goes bad" or frown on certain parenting philosophies. The problem with this is that the forget that there's a child involved who has a mind of his/her own. And therefore, I will discuss why this type of thinking (us versus them, aka my parenting philosophy kicks your parenting philosophy's butt any day of the week) because it's just plain destructive.

Okay, night!

A response to the response to the response

2011-10-17T13:22:00.000-07:00

I love these type of dialogues. They really reinforce the whole idea that I have enough material in my head to garner a book despite the fact that my children aren't teenagers. Thank you Anonymous! I shall call you Ducky because I think even if one wants to remain Anonymous it's just easier to call a person something. So be you male or female I shall call you Ducky.

Ducky writes an interesting comment which I could respond to in a short manner, but feel needs more explanation than that. Hence the response to a response to a response. So let's take a look at what Ducky says.

You're not crazy or extreme. You have your way and acknowledge that other people have theirs - I wish most people conveyed their feelings like you.

I think you have a lot of merit & good thought-process behind what you say.

Thank you, Ducky! I hope that if I ever write a book on the topic that the introduction will say something to that effect. A lot of my pet peeves about people who write books on discipline are that when they make their argument for their philosophy they tend to bash the opposing view. It's far better to dissect a person's thoughts and use logical reasoning than to make statements like "Beware of Baby Trainers." If I were to write a book, it wouldn't be motivated by selfishness, greed, or fame. I feel that being a Catholic Christian calls us to use our gifts constructively, that is to say in the way God desires not how we desire. The point of writing the book is to offer a philosophy, for better or worse, that a parent can glean from. I don't want anyone to copy cat me because "I said so."

I will only note my observations with parents who are always trying to reason with their tots and speaking in sweet voices. Their children are not intimidated at all by their parents and tend to be terribly behaved.(special cases not included)

Yes, this "sweet talking" is a peeve of mine as well. It sends the wrong message. However, I don't believe in intimidating a child. I believe in being firm with a child, which means having follow through with what you're saying. Making threats especially idle ones or yelling don't work. And given what you've said in your comment I hope that's what you mean.

The dictionary definition for intimidation or rather the verb intimidate means: "to make timid or fearful; frighten: to compel or deter by or as if by threats" You've said in your comment that: I am not saying your children need to fear you, but they need to be intimidated just a little, so that they are afraid to break the rules or act like jerks. So that would mean that you agree that intimidating a child isn't a good idea.

But let's look a little deeper into what you've said. Why not yell? Like all forms of punishment, children become numb to yelling if you yell a lot. You want to save yelling for times when you need an immediate halt to something that is dangerous. "Stop!" "No!" If you say these words in a yelling voice all the time, they become ineffective for when you actually need them. It's not really about intimidating them by making a threat. Children can tell that you are scared, which you should be if there is a real threat of danger. They will know from your tone of voice that something they are about to do is scary without the need to be intimidating.

Why not intimidate? Several reasons...

1) Adults are intimidating enough by virtue of size- I'm an average sized woman. My son is average in height. This means that he's literally half my size. I don't know about you, but if someone who was twice as tall as me and weighed about three times more stood over me, it wouldn't take much to scare the heck out of me. I'd probably hand over my wallet without a fuss. However, this tall person would have to do quite a bit to help me not be scared of them. We'd have to build a report of some sort before I would begin to feel more comfortable around them. So with that in mind, adults don't need to be intimidating. They already are.

2) Intimidation doesn't build trust- Trust is important for children to have. The world is scary and not so nice a place. To me home should be an area where they can learn and grow safely so they can conquer the forces out there that don't love them as much. Children who deal daily with bullies feel more confident to seek out help from parents and teachers if they come from good safe homes than they do if they come from homes where they can't make mistakes. Children, like any other person, make mistakes and make bad choices. They are going to do this. And there is nothing that you can do to stop it. I can't stop making mistakes. You can't stop making mistakes. We're human. But God in through his Grace gives us the ability to conquer most of our wrong choices. And as parents, we are to mirror God's love, which means we have to acknowledge that children aren't perfect, but we get the responsibility, the gift to guide and teach them what's right and wrong. As they say, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink. And why intimidate them anyway? What does it teach them? Not to trust you or your judgement. And to be scared of you instead of learning the consequences.

3) Intimidation causes one of two things: questions of self-worth or rebellion. If a child's life choices are hinged on what their parents say, then children won't learn how to make choices. Even young children need to make choices even if they are limited ones. They need to learn self-reliance. And they can't learn either if they are in environment where they are scared.

4) Intimidation makes it hard to question authority- Ducky mentioned respecting authority. I don't advocate teaching a child to respect authority. The reason is because after the whole priest sex abuse scandal it became clear why victims didn't speak up or out while it was happening (although several did). They were afraid of the priest, a person in a position of authority. They knew what was happening was wrong, but they were intimidated and taught never to question an adult's motives. Now some people would disagree with this because they think it causes rebellion. Not true. My parents taught me to question authority figures with respect. And this is something any child can learn to do. I had to respectfully admonish my own piano teacher in high school who later appreciated that I did so with respect for her as well as for myself. Children shouldn't be walked over by anyone including other adults.

So does this apply to young children? Yes, I think so. The reason leads to my next question. If there is no intimidating factor, how do you get to teach your child to "respect your authority?" Well, as I said, I don't advocate teaching a child to respect your authority. Authority is a temporary gift from God. When a child turns 18, you no longer have any legal authority over them as a parent. If you screw up and the government says you aren't fit, you also no longer have any legal authority over a child. If your child grants you this authority when they are an adult, I'd be extremely surprised because somewhere along the way your role will slowly change from authority figure to a mentor. My dad told me that when I was 16 he was not my authority figure. He could no longer tell me what to do. Did he mean his job was done? No, hardly. Is it done now? Nope. The difference is that I respect my father and his opinion to consult him.

So really what you want to teach your child is to respect you because your their older (and hopefully wiser) parent. How do you go about this? Several ways which could take a chapter in a book, but let me throw out a handful. Don't be a screw up. Well, I wish we all could not be. But alas, I am a screw up and so are you. The difference is to learn how to be a good screw up. Acknowledge that you do things wrong from time to time and ask forgiveness. Even ask forgiveness from children. I goes a long way. I once made a child cry. I made a huge mistake. But when I realized that I was the one who was wrong, I had a choice to make. I could say "well, I'm the big bad authority figure and therefore suck it up little girl" which makes her respect me less. Or I can say, "You know what. You screw up and so do I. We're not perfect. I'm sorry. Can you forgive me?" And that will go a long way. Children know that adults screw up (even young children). It's better to acknowledge that we have short comings rather than to be arrogant and never apologize for them.

The other thing is that respect is mutual. At some point outside of infancy, children flex their ability to make choices and be autonomous. You have to respect that while keeping them safe. It's why I talk ad nausium about not pushing food on picky eaters, or forcing kids to learn the toilet, or giving kids a curfew (gasp! I never had one). If you can't respect your children enough to trust them and their choices, then you really need to see that perhaps the reason has something to do with you not trusting your parenting abilities. Does this mean that they won't make bad choices? Again, no. Ask my dad about me coming home at 5 in the morning once. Did he make a big deal of it? Nope. But I had to deal with be totally exhausted while running errands with him like we had planned. He trusted me enough to make that choice for myself. And I grew to respect him because he trusted and respected me.

So again, I welcome all questions to my authority. But remember, I stand behind what I say because it works. Ask my dad. I've never so much as smoked a cigarette in my life nor have I got a tattoo all because when I asked my dad for his opinion he told me he didn't think it was a wise choice. He could have explained why, but I respected him and so as an old lady with two kids, I've never done either. And he's never really offered an explanation.

For Calah

2011-10-16T21:58:00.000-07:00

Calah, from Barefoot and Pregnant, wrote an awesome post today. I wanted to respond, but realized that in doing so I would take up too much of the comment box. I decided it would be better to spill my thoughts here instead. So let's start at the beginning...it's a very good place to start...when you read...(okay, I'll stop. It's the hormones. Right now I'm in a jovial mood. We'll see if that lasts.)

For those of you who have heard the spiel before, please skip this part. For those of you who don't know me, I have two children. One is almost two. The other is soon to be born (I hope). I have a BME, Bachelor's of Music Education, with an emphasis in instrumental music education. Basically, I was a trained band director who also was forced to take classes for elementary music. My certification says that I can teach K-12. I've taught K-2 briefly. I've also worked with junior high and high school students. Prior to becoming Mommy, I worked a stint in a daycare. Long story, but I needed a job to get out of a terrible job and daycare seemed like the best bet at the time. I was the 2s teacher although I also worked with 1 year olds and preschoolers. As a result of working at a daycare (and as any teacher knows) you have to take continuing education classes. A lot of the classes involved discipline. I've also happened to read quite a number of discipline books and own a few. If you want to read some of my reviews, just use the search on the right and type in "discipline."

Does this make me an expert in the area of discipline? No. Definitely not. As my mother would say, "Children don't come with instruction manuals." What this educational background has taught me is this: 1) Every child is different and every family is different. So it's a trial by error when raising children. 2) Everybody has an opinion on discipline and mine is no better or worse than anyone else's save those who advocate a high level of physical punishment (ie abuse). And my point of view has changed over time. I think as a parent-to-be we all have ideas in our head, but once we get there, things change.

Why am I so obsessed with discipline? I suppose it's just one of those subjects that I feel that I need to set the record straight about. It's like the time I tuned into a popular music radio station and the dj was asking questions for a prize. The question was what famous child's song did Mozart use in a piece he wrote when he was five. They were talking about Twinkle, Twinkle, aka Black, Sheep Black Sheep aka ABC song, which no one knows the origins of because it's roots spread out across time and countries. And he didn't write it when he was five. He wrote it when he was 25 probably for a piano student. If you don't believe me, look at Wikipedia. Mozart's earliest compositions happened when he was five, but they were rudimentary in comparison. I explained this to the dj who assured me that I, a budding musicologist, was wrong. It's just one of those things that seems to need someone like me to stick their nose in because people have gotten it so wrong.

What's the thing people have gotten wrong? Equating the word discipline with punishment. I've said it a million zillion times here, but punishment can be a part of discipline. Discipline, however, is not punishment. It means "to teach." I try to remind Christians here that the word "disciple" shares the same root as the word "discipline" and as far as I know Jesus didn't hit his disciples. He admonished them, yes. But he didn't curse them out, feed them frozen foods, or beat them with a belt to "scare the devil out of 'em." And unfortunately, as I've said before, some Christians (*cough* those who adhere to the Pearl's teachings) are forgetting that one important fact.

Discipline simply means "to teach." There's no hidden meaning to it other than the one society has equated it with. When people think of discipline they automatically think of punishment, but some people also think of reward. I advocate neither rewards or punishments. But for now I'll talk about punishments because that's what Calah's post is about.

I don't advocate spanking as I've said. There are a number of reasons. I could go into all the studies, but I think there's no point. I was spanked. I didn't learn a darn thing, as I've said before. And to me what I ultimately want my child to do is to learn. So it would seem counter-intuitive if I, who was spanked, don't remember any real lessons from it, to spank my child in hopes he'll learn something. I understand many people who do spank think that spanking is a reasonable way to keep a child out of danger. Again it all depends on the child, but as far as my own experience with children goes. It doesn't. Instead of learning to look both ways to cross the street, children often stop and look at the adult out of fear of being swatted. So I leave that one up to you. Do you want to teach your child to cross a street safely on their own? Or do you want them to rely on you to learn what is safe and what is not? Personally, I want my child to be autonomous. I don't believe in hand holding either of my sons through life otherwise they won't learn the ability to think for themselves when I'm not around. And so I start with small things (like don't touch that it's hot) to bigger things like (don't have sex before your married). It's not a strange concept. It's how my parents intended to teach me. To show me that all my actions have consequences. Unfortunately, it also involved a lot of belts when words and explanations would have worked too.

As for time-outs, well the state regulators where I was working aren't advocating time-outs. In fact, they are against that as a method of discipline. They are proposing things like redirection, which I advocate for young children especially. The reason the state stopped advocating time-out is because they were being overused. Like any form of punishment, if you're going to use punishment, save it for the bigger things. If it gets overused, the child will become numb to it, for lack of a better explanation.

I once worked with a 3 year old whose mother neglected him or beat him. He was found at age one in a cabinet in the kitchen scarfing down a box of cereal completely dirty. His Aunt and Uncle took him in. I discovered early on that any kind of sternness or time-outs would make him angrier and more violent. He wasn't getting the message he wanted to get across. If, on the other hand, you spoke to him gently and let him alone to cool off, he was better behaved. Sounds counter-intuitive doesn't it? But really it boils down to this: were we trying to teach him how to play nicely with others or were we interested in punishing him more for our own gains (vengeful or justified or whatever). If you think of it being about teaching him something, then you have discard the justice served part. It's hard for adults to comprehend this, but you have to make a decision. Do you want your child to learn? Or do you want justice?

There are some benefits to time-outs. I've used it a few times with HB, but not in a traditional way. They aren't punitive. Either we move him into his room away from whatever he's doing wrong (redirection) but he has the ability to leave. Or if he's very upset, I tell him "okay, I can see your upset and angry. When you're ready, we can go outside. Just come and find me." Then I leave the room. He has a moment, like any human being, to express him emotions safely without punishment, without judgement and when he gets himself together, he's fine. I assure you it works with temper tantrums. He usually quiets down a couple of seconds after I leave the room, and then comes and finds me with a smile on his face as if to say "Thanks, Mom. I needed to get that off my chest." I do the same thing when he starts shrieking. I warn him that it's too loud and it hurts my ears and if he doesn't stop, then I'll have to leave. I leave and usually I hear some sort of whine (he's nearly two so saying it's over is hard for him) and that indicates that he's done and ready for me to come back.

There are some benefits to time-outs for older children to. Just like adults, older children need a place to get away and deal with their feelings. I recommend a book called Positive Time-outs for more info.

So if spanking isn't working for you, taking away toys, or time-outs don't work well either, what do you do? Easy. Stop. And tell your child you are going to stop. That however doesn't mean you don't have rules. May I suggest using an old teaching strategy of having your family make a rule chart and coming up with their own consequences. Or if the child in question is to young for that, trying to figure out why they are misbehaving. HB gets into the blinds for two reasons: boredom and frustration. Boredom just means I need to get off the couch (even if I'm feeling like an elephant is about to burst from my body). Frustration, we've been working on getting him to punch pillows. It's a work in progress.

Getting a child to immediately obey will not happen. Sure corporal punishment will get them to stop immediately, but again what are they learning? It's far harder to teach a child through things like redirection or rule charts. It takes time. So I wouldn't give up if it doesn't work the first 10-15 times. I wouldn't throw in the towel and resort to time-outs. A lot of parents, a lot of very tired frustrated parents, do this, and that's another reason why I'm so into the discipline thing. We need each other's support during trying times. We need to have someone around whose done this before especially if we didn't grow up that way. So if any parent finds themselves at the end of their rope and nothing seems to be working, find a good mentor. I won't say that I'm the best mentor, but if you need someone to start with, until you can find someone older and wiser with kids in college, you can always e-mail me. Leave a comment and I'll contact you.

Hope it helps.

Oh, and if I haven't mentioned it, you are free to tear each and every word I said apart and say that I'm a complete idiot and out of my gourd. I won't be offended if you do so nicely. As I said, I'm no expert. I will, however, tell you upfront that I stand behind each and every word that I said so there's no point in trying to change my mind. It's better if you simply offer a differing opinion without having the expectation that I will agree with you. Do we agree to disagree?

7- Quick Takes-Er um...Green Tips

2011-10-14T12:54:00.000-07:00

1) Recycle Me- Wanna be a very shade of dark green? Recycle Me Organic Tees is a company that uses organic cotton grown in the US, milled in the US, and stitched in the US- Their reasoning is that while it's nice to use eco-friendly fabrics and dyes it creates even less of a footprint when it's done all in one country. Check them out. They have infant tees through adult tees at very reasonable prices. I would totally buy a shirt except they don't carry maternity wear. Drat. I only have a couple months or so to go so I'll have to wait until then.

2) North Star Toys- Looking for that perfect stocking stuffer for your kid? Look no further. North Star Toys is a family owned and operated wooden toy maker. They use sustainable practices including recycling and donating scraps. Best of all? Made in the US.

3) Green Eats- I'm so enjoying our Green Eats dinner wear. They endure the toddler tossings well. They also can be washed in the dishwasher. Green Eats is a line of toddler dining wear made from recycled milk jugs. They're parent company is Green Toys. Totally BPA free. They come in fun colors. Hubby likes them so much that he told me that we need to buy a couple more of the round divided plates (great for kids who hate their food touching) and since HB is into milk with his cereal, we should buy a few bowls too. I love Green Toys. My son loves their dump truck. I've already decided that his Christmas will include several Green Toys items. Why do I love it so much? All made in the USA.

4) Yes, My Quick Takes looks like a giant advertisement for products. But I will tell you that my love of Thirsties is going strong. Cloth diapering is so fun. I watch their outlet store a lot to find what I want to try for less. After ordering a few items that they consider 2nds because of defects, I can tell you I didn't find any. Check out their site to watch for the deals. Why do I love Thirsties? Well they use sustainable practices and they make their stuff in the USA (seeing a theme here). We tried our Fab Fitted again and this time I used the Thirsties suggestion of putting the hemp stuffing into the cover and not the fitted. Verdict? Well Hubby changed it so I don't know if the ammonia was powerful, but no diaper rash and no leaks. Doing a happy dance.

5) My diapering problem landed me in one of our local cloth diaper stores. I needed to go their for Rockin' Green detergent anyway. Which I totally love because it's eco-friendly, totally get rid of nasty diaper smell, and you guessed it, is made in the USA. Right now if you buy Rockin' Green you may get a Green Ticket with a chance to win several prizes.

6) So I was talking to the lady about my night time diapering problem and she suggested a side-snapping diaper. She handed me a Swaddlebees 2.0 and said HB should fit into a Medium with room to grow. I liked their prints, but I wasn't sure if this what looked like a tiny cloth diaper would fit. Took it home. Sure enough. It's totally trim with room to spare. The diaper is a tongue style with bird's eye inner and water proofing on the outside. We have the owl one. Haven't used it at night because I tried the Thirties again, but it works awesome for daytime. Trim and smooth across the front for little boys, I highly recommend this one. And yes, it's made in the USA.

7) This one is an easy one for you. Have more children. I was listening to Catholic Answers via radio and they had the guy who heads of the Population Research Institute (not to be confused with the Population Institute whose agenda is to control the world's population). Anyways. One of the callers asked to explain how it's counter-intutitive to the environment to limit the number of children you have. Well here's his explanation. You can live in an average size house with one child. You're family of three would use one fridge, have a microwave, one oven, one tv set, etc. etc. If you're a family with more children say six, then your family of eight will still use one fridge, have one microwave, one oven, one tv set, etc. etc. So if you limit the number of children and spread them out so that their are less children sharing basic things, then you are using more energy and more resources to make the same products that a family with more children who live under the same roof uses. So it makes more sense to live in extended family homes with more children. So go out there, be fruitful and multiply, and be greener. Oh, and support your neighbors and use less oil by buying local and made in the USA.

And for my British or Canadian readers, I highly recommend Bummis, Tots Bots, or Motherease for cloth diapering needs.

No, Your Eyes...

2011-10-13T20:51:00.000-07:00

No, your eyes don't deceive you. This is another wall painting from San Xavier Mission in Tucson. The previous one was about Pentecost (I'm behind in my updating the blog) and this one is Mary with the infant Jesus with maybe you can tell a cloth diaper. That's right, my friends. Took me a while to make the connection. But the Bible says the infant Jesus was swaddled in cloth. And why did they swaddle him? Well, not only to keep him warm, but also to avoid being pooped upon. So Jesus had a fluffy bum. Hence another part of the pun in my blog title : Diapers and Drivel. Because I talk about the diapers in my own life, but Jesus pooed a few himself. I know people avoid the topics of blood, vomit, and poo like they are the plague (okay they were part of the plague), but honestly Jesus bled, he probably vomited a few times since he was human (and divine), and of course he pooed. My friend used to say "Even the Pope Poops. And I hope he has some fantastically good ones too." So here's to the Pope. May he have had or will have a good poo today. And here's to Our Lord and Savior, who humbled himself enough to eat and poo with us. :)

Tot School- Ideas for Halloween/ All Saints Day

2011-10-11T14:44:00.000-07:00

Ideas for Tot School- some of them we've done, others planning on, and not because he's a little on the young side (tots range for 1-3)

Songs and Finger Play-
Itsy Bitsy Spider
5 Little Pumpkins Sitting on a Gate
Dem Bones, Dem Bones

Pumpkin week
Jack O Lantern- Old Milk Jug with cap, Marbles or dried beans, orange paint tempura- Take and put a couple of tablespoons of paint into milk jug, add marbles or dried beans, put on cap and have child shake the contents (you might want to do this in the bathroom or outside where it's easy to clean up should the jug leak a little)- Variations can have child decorate outside with a face- can add a glow stick at night to show through paint

Paper Bag Pumpkin- brown paper bag, newspaper for stuffing, orange and green tempura paint- put newspaper inside a brown paper bag, twist the top to form a stem, may want to secure with a rubber band or twisty tie, have child paint outside- Variation can decorate the face

Pumpkin Stamping- small pumpkin, orange tempura paint, construction paper- cut bottom portion of pumpkin off, have child dip it into paint and then apply to paper- Variations- can use different size pumpkins and also talk about small and big

Pumpkin collage- construction paper, glue, and pre-cut (or if old enough torn out pages) pictures from a magazine- have child glue pumpkins on while discussing silly or scary faces, colors of pumpkin (usually the varieties are white or orange), can also count number of pumpkins in collage

Baking-
Pumpkin bread
Pumpkin Cheesecake
Pumpkin Pie
Pumpkin seeds

I highly recommend that you give your child the easy task of mixing or scooping out seeds. I also recommend cooking a pumpkin as opposed to using a recipe that calls for canned pumpkin. You can bake both the seeds to ground up for a nutritious treat and the guts to make anything else. They also will get the concept of pumpkins being something you eat (not just for decoration). If you want to, you can decorate a pumpkin with non-toxic paint (or carve it although for young children it would be scooping out the guts) and then cook it later.

Spiders
Spider Web- black construction paper, salt or sugar, shaker (for salt or sugar), non-toxic glue, and a box- Take black construction paper, have child squeeze out glue or can smear it on, then place paper in box and have child shake out edible salt or sugar- allow to dry and you have a spider web- Variation cooled and cooked spaghetti noodles, they stick just as well and give more of a 3d effect

Spider figure 8- Cut a black piece of construction paper into a figure 8 (head and body) cut out 8 strips of paper and have child glue to figure 8, discuss head and body and 8 legs of a spider

All Saints Day
Mummy/Lazarus raised from the dead
You can read the tale about Lazarus raising from the dead in his burial shroud and then have fun toilet papering your toddler or having them toilet paper you into a mummy.

All Saints Costumes- Pick a saint and have your child dress up as one while discussing why that person is a saint
All Saints coloring pages- enough said- also can dot page with finger paints and allow to dry, then give toddler a paint brush and water and watch as your all saints day coloring page comes alive

Ghosts costuming- use an old sheet or pillow case and create a ghost for Day of the Dead

Ghosts- can use paper towel or white fabric and stuff extra into top and secure with rubber band and allow child to decorate with makers

Visit a cemetery- Decorate the grave of a loved one or pick an old grave stone for All Souls Day- decorate with flowers- great for discussions about the after life and death-

Other Food
Candy Apples- Can have child dip apple into caramel or into toppings under good supervision
Popcorn balls- can purchase a popcorn ball form and have child push popcorn into it to form a ball (again hot so under supervision)

Aaron Tobey- You're my hero

2011-10-07T23:27:00.000-07:00

This is a bit of old news. I live around college students and they can do some stupid and yet bold things. In this case, Aaron Tobey seems extremely intelligent and did a bold deed that only college students seem to do. (I can't imagine scrawling the 4th amendment to my prego belly). Below is the video describing his run in with the TSA last December.

Here's a picture:

And so what's happening now. Well Tobey and the Rutherford Institute, which defends civil liberties, have sued the government officials and the TSA personnel for violating both Tobey's 1st (freedom of speech) and 4th (unreasonable search) amendment rights. So far a district judge has thrown out the suit for the government but has retained it against the specific TSA agents. So maybe it will be a turn around in the system.

Aaron, You the Man! Thanks for doing/saying the thing that most of us feel. You should change your major.

Total Depravity or Total Nonsense?

2011-10-06T22:00:00.000-07:00

I recently got a comment on my post about Concupiscence where the commenter discussed the Protestant doctrine of Total Depravity. I encourage you to read it.

So what exactly is Total Depravity? Well basically it's this: after the fall man became sinful and he can't escape it. He's utterly incapable, apart from God's grace, to ever make a good choice or do something good. He relies utterly on God. There is much more to it than that, but that's the basic gist.

Problems with this: from the Catholic prospective, God made us good. We had the fall and then through God's grace (the road to Calvary, Baptism, among other things) we were somewhat restored to our goodness. Like any time a person falls, you will get a scar. And we retain the scar (concupiscence). This doesn't make us evil. It just makes us prone to evil. Biggest difference here: we are capable of making good choices because of our redemption. We are given free will to be good or be bad. Total depravity makes it out to be that God has to constantly stand by and help us make that choice. The Catholic prospective is that he already helped us make that choice when he died on a cross. No hand holding necessary.

At least that's my understanding of it.

There are some other more sinister inherent problems to Total Depravity doctrine other than the constant belittling of God's creation (man). Some people use this theological mumbo jumbo to justify child abuse. Google the Pearl's and you will see that two children have already succumbed to this. The Pearl's advocate spanking a child as young as four months old. They also believe that the "rod of correction" to be used is a piece of plumbing line.

If anyone can tell you how sick and twisted this is, you should read Elizabeth Esther's blog. For those of you who haven't read it, she's a Catholic convert who grew up in a Christian cult. She will tell you that the number one reason why she became a Catholic is that Catholic's don't view people as evil. She explained that Mary was actually the gateway to picking up a relationship with Jesus again. Through Mary's love, she began to see that God is loving and he makes us good.

The whole idea that we are evil, horrible, deserving of hell, and therefore God allows evil to befall us is total rubish. God allows evil in the world. Yes, we deserve hell when we sin. But to think that God sets up our lives this way just totally nullifies Christ's death. If God wanted us to be evil, he wouldn't have done so many great things for us. He wouldn't have redeemed us. God loves us. We make the bad choices, but still God finds ways to make it easier for us to make the right choices. He doesn't make it harder.

Does that make sense?

My Birthing Center Misgivings

2011-10-06T17:58:00.000-07:00

Maybe I'm crabby because it's the end of a long road. Maybe I should just lighten up, but....I'm missing my old ob terribly. Not cause she was the greatest in the birth room, but because she didn't fret so much when it came to prenatal care.

1) Length of time- I understand that the birthing center is very "wholistic" in the sense that it looks at the whole of the woman. So they make appointments for an hour. But I really dread a whole hour because they seem like mini lectures with a toddler who is restless thrown in. I like shorter times. 20 minutes suites me just fine. I really can't honestly express myself thoroughly anyway when I'm trying to make sure that my toddler isn't scratching their "precious" floor with their toddler chairs.

2) Promotion of goods- They don't accept kick backs as the mid-wife explained, but they sure do push certain brands. She basically handed me an empty box for some pre-natal vitamins that cost 30 dollars for a whole month's bottle in the store. She said they were better than the prescription kind because the scripts have "filler." It still urks me a little.

3) They don't contract with insurance- Because they don't like to play by the medical community rules, they don't contract with insurance carriers. This could be a good thing in that they get to decide how many patients to take and who to take. It can also be a red flag that they are so belligerent that they don't want to work with the main stream medical community at all. They also don't carry liability insurance. I guess they aren't afraid of law suits.

4) This statement urks me too. To give context it's talking about research by a Dr. Wallach. "Because the Cystic Fibrosis gene is reportedly present in only 1 out of 2500 persons this clearly proves that cystic fibrosis is not a genetic disorder." The whole cystic fibrosis diagnosis, the article says, is really a selenium deficiency. The reason it urks me is because if that were the case then you would see a higher prevalence of cystic fibrosis in lower income/poor areas due to lack of nutrition. But cystic fibrosis shows up in Caucasian population groups not across the board populations like Downs does. So this theory that CF is "not a genetic disorder" blew my lid and made me want to drop these people. Sure taking selenium probably does help with the affects of CF, but to say that there is no evidence that CF is a genetic disorder well....I'm stunned. There are way too many scientific studies out there to prove otherwise. And it's just common sense to see that a selenium deficiency theory doesn't hold water.

5) They're thick "medical history" packet- The ob (there is an ob and midwife there) keeps insisting on this and I just magically don't bring it. It's a packet full of redundancies and stuff that makes absolutely no sense to my medical care. To top it off, I find it way too personal. They asked me questions about my childhood eating habits. What that has to do with the way I eat now I don't know. Wouldn't it be better to ask more specific questions like having a history of an eating disorder? Or this one really just made me stop filling the thing out "has your mother had an abortion, miscarriage, etc." Okay not me. My mother. And and they say at the top that if you feel uncomfortable asking your mother these questions to ask someone else. Yeah, I'm going to go up to my mom's best friend and ask this question and feel more comfortable about it. Uh, no. I seriously don't understand what my mother's abortions or not abortions have anything to do with me.

I get the asking family medical history questions, previous pregnancy questions, even my thoughts and experiences about other people pregnancies (they are "wholistic") but really isn't that just an invasion of someone else's privacy? So I drew the line and told Hubby. I'm not finishing this stupid thing. If she wants to really know why I don't bring it in then I'll be straight with her, it's too personal and it's offensive to me. How's that for "wholistic" care.

6) Big into needing more protein- At the old ob I would pee on a stick and the stick had two lines on it. I would show it to the nurse who would then discard it into bio hazards. Here I pee on a stick with like 12 lines and throw it into the regular trash myself. I also have to look at the stuff myself and try to decipher what it means. Inevitably it says I don't drink enough water. I've been given a couple of different bits of advice. The best one being today coming from the mid-wife in training who suggested chugging water in the morning because I might be starting out my day a little dehydrated and never getting on track.

But the ob didn't seem phased. She kept pushing protein like I was deficient or something. I don't even know if she even looked at my blood tests because as far as I know my protein is fine. But she's so concerned about my nursing that she keeps on insisting on protein. I'm not a vegetarian BTW. I drink a lot of milk. I do my part. I just don't have time to try and guess as to how many grams I'm eating during the day. If I would her, I would be more concerned about my lack of veggies. I have a tendency to grab the burger and not the salad. But she spins protein around so much she forgets to even ask what I had yesterday. Hubby tells me that if I'm not going to cave about the dang medical history packet that I should at least take up her suggestion of protein powder. Fine. If that will get the monkey off my back.

7) "Concerns about last weeks trip to triage"- I say this in quotes because she didn't even know about it until I mentioned it. Then tried to get me to recount details while keeping a watch on HB. So she referred to it as pre-term labor. Folks it was not pre-term labor. If that was the case, I'd been told to be on bed rest. She's really making mountains out of mole hills. And I'm not sure if this is entirely her fault or the mid-wife's, but they need to put that sorta stuff in their file. She asked about my activities and I told her that I was cutting back. But not once did she ask about my sleep. Nor while she told me to stop doing anything, does she realize that that's really impossible. Unless given bed rest, Hubby can't justify to work that he has to take time off to give me a "break." So I roll my eyes.

I suppose my biggest beef is that I end up being lectured to and all the while dealing with my child, which makes it hard for me to think, to mention things, or to defend my actions. They say they are all about the woman and her feelings and needs, but I feel like they are hacking me off. That and I think the ob should back off on my parenting skills with HB. She equated us having HB sit and watch (no touching) of computers with torture. It's a compromise. He can have a no or a yes, where he destroys peoples property or a "can learn a torturous" skill as a compromise.

Maybe it's that last trimester moodiness, but I told Hubby that if she's on call during delivery I may be kicking her out and delivering the baby myself. I hate people who patronize. Especially "educated" people. Not having a bunch of degrees, doesn't mean you're an idiot. And having a bunch of degrees doesn't mean your a genius. And she should know that since she's stepped away from main stream medical community practices.

The Stinks has a Cold

2011-10-05T12:20:00.000-07:00

I call my kid Stinks. It's short for Stinky Poop Pooper. He understands that I'm talking about him when I say Stinks. So yesterday, I mentioned the up-chucking episode. Well last night, my dear one, the Stinks, woke up at 10 pm. Not his whimper from a bad dream, which happens from time to time, but a full on cry. And I thought, "Oh, dear. He's vomited again."

What I came in on, thank Heaven, was not vomit, but a snotty kid who is having a hard time being comfortable. So I sit up with him and hold him while Hubby tries to get the humidifier to work. We end up with a lot of water sloshed on the floor (again thank heaven for cloth diapers because those prefolds are so absorbent). Finally I get it to work. We set it up and I shove the pillow under one side of the mattress to elevate it. I know this is bad to do with a mattress on a regular basis.

We go to bed at 10:30 and everybody sleeps through the night except me and little brother who are up about 5-6 to make use of the facilities. Of course, Hubby thought it wasn't worth it to get the humidifier out, but he probably got more sleep then he would have had had HB not had it.

Right now, HB is asleep which I don't think will last long. I myself dozed off this morning on the couch. I think of the entire family. I'm the one who is loosing sleep, which I keep reminding Hubby about that as he complains about going to bed an hour later than he'd like. HB's cold isn't too bad. It's a clear snot. So we'll wait it out.

Veggie Tales- Catholic friendly

2011-10-04T19:02:00.000-07:00

My child is driving me crazy. My body hurts. I hope that you will forgive my blathering and multiple posts. I need a mommy break.

My child threw up this afternoon. I'm thinking it's allergies because he seems fine now. But now you know why I'm going a little nuts. That and he keeps asking to play the Wii. I figured after the vomiting thing he should take it easy and watch his favorite Veggie Tale (for the upteenth time). We don't own it so I upload it from Netflix and watch it via the Wii, which is why he's insisting on playing it. Does he like other toys? Not really. He'd rather be on the computer or the Wii all day long.

His favorite Veggie Tale is King George and the Ducky. Today after watching it for the millionth time, I realized that even though Veggie Tales is hugely Evangelical/Protestant, they threw a curve ball in about the sacrament of confession.

Yes, Veggie Tales does ordinarily cater to it's Catholic audience with titles like St. Nicholas. This is definitely not evangelical since evangelicals don't use saints when referring to St. Paul or St. Peter or St. Thomas or well...you get the idea.

But here it was a story about not being selfish and then there's this whole confession scene. Let me explain more fully. In the story, King George covets his neighbor's ducky to the point of stealing it. It's a Veggie-take on the story of King David and Bathsheba. King George steals the ducky and sends it's owner to the front lines. Then a wise-man, in other words, a priest or confessor shows up and corrects King George. King George is shown that what he did was wrong. What does the wise man tell him to do? Pray and ask God to forgive his sin and then "make it right" with the former ducky owner.

So this is very much like confession. You go to your confessor usually aware of some sin, but sometimes not and the confessor may know or prompt you to remember something you've done wrong. Or you may just be talking or asking for advice when they tell you you've sinned. You're confessor rightly tells you to ask God for forgiveness (act of contrition) and to "make things right" (penance) which would mean returning the stolen item and asking for forgiveness.

And here it is laid out in Veggie Tale fashion for the evangelical/protestant crowd to see. So why is confession such an oddity and unnecessary act to so many other Christian groups? Clearly the Bible and Veggie Tales agree that you have to make amends as well as as for God's forgiveness. Which is what the Catholic church (among a few others) says that you should do formally.

Is Veggie Tales still an evangelical-leaning production company or has Veggie Tales crossed the Tiber and has Catholic leanings. What do you think?

Also to be noted: I don't let HB watch Pistachio because the theology there I disagree with. Honoring your parents doesn't mean you do what they tell you when it's wrong in other words to strictly obey. They make it out to be black and white when it isn't that way in real life. Pistachio is about the only Tale that I don't let him watch.

TSA Lacks Sympathy

2011-10-04T18:41:00.000-07:00

The TSA announced not too long ago that they planned to decrease the number of pat downs children under 12 would experience and they would not require children under 12 to remove their shoes. They made HB remove his shoes, which in my opinion is utterly ridiculous. He wears a size 5 infant/toddler shoe. How in the world am I going to stuff a bomb in one of his shoes? To top it off, do they really think I wanted to deal with the hassle of removing and then putting back on his shoes? It smacks of stupidity.

But even if TSA is finally getting it when it comes to children, they lack any bit of sympathy when it comes to people with medical conditions.

Here is the latest about a woman with breast cancer who had a medical card having her breasts touched. And they say that they handled it according to protocol because there are no allowances made when a person produces a medical card versus one who doesn't.

From the TSA: "Medical cards, whether from a physician or TSA, do not exempt you from screening. They're a great way for passengers to discreetly let us know about a medical situation or disability they have. This is very helpful for the passenger and our officers because it lets us know how to better screen the passenger. Passengers may present these cards at the checkpoint to our officers. In this case, our officers should have allowed the passenger to present her card and been more empathetic to her situation while completing the screening process."

So what exactly is the point of having a medical card if they are still going to touch you where you just had a double mastectomy? That doesn't seem "empathetic" to me. And by the way, TSA, empathy means you've gone through this before or shared a similar experience. I highly doubt that everyone who screens passengers has had a double mastectomy or some other body part removed from their person. Nor do I think the TSA screens it's own employees with such disdain as they do passengers. So maybe compassion would be a better word choice. Although they lack that too.

Or how about this poor woman back in June who had to remove her adult diaper because they could tell the difference between an incendiary device and human soilage.

What is the world coming to. I'm seriously hoping that the airlines stop contracting with TSA and hire independent screeners. Legally they can do that.

Room to be Different

2011-10-04T12:50:00.000-07:00

This is the typical conversation around the dinner table.

Hubby: We've got to get him to stop throwing food on the floor.
Me: Uh, huh. *Watching as my child picks up his plate and deposits it on the splat mat below.*
Hubby: You're ignoring me.
Me: We've been over this before and you're over-reacting. It's normal for a toddler to throw their food on the floor.
Hubby: So you don't plan on doing anything about it?
Me: Nope. What's the point?
Hubby: It's going to become a habit. We have to teach him to stop.
Me: No it won't. And the more you get upset about it the more he's going to do it to get your attention. I mean. Common. How many five year olds do you know that throw their food on the floor?
Hubby: And that's my point. Someone taught them to stop.
Me: Even five year olds who come from neglectful families stop throwing food on the floor.
Hubby: Okay. Fine. You win again. But I don't like it.
Me: You never do.

Two days ago, insert throwing food on floor scenario with eating his food from the table without his hands. Hubby used the same "it's going to become a habit" thing.

The funny part of all this is that I'm the conservative one. My hair is down mid-back. I'm a church goer. I wear long skirts most every day. My husband owns a shirt that says "Wink, and I'll do the rest" and another one that says "Trogdor" I could keep going with the number of shirts he has like this. I once had to make him put back a shirt that had a dinner plate and knife and fork with some pet animal on it. It's his sense of humor.

So you would think that my husband wouldn't care that my son is showing typical child behavior, but I chalk up his lack of patience to a few things.

1) He's the neat freak. My husband doesn't like constantly picking up food off the floor. If he had his way, we'd have dinner outside or would feed HB himself.
2) My husband is a scientist. While he expresses himself with his choice of apparel, his day job is much more meticulous and regimented. Mine isn't. And it never has been. I'm a musician and a teacher. I've learned well how to think on my feet. Hubby gets flustered if things don't go according to plan.
3) Hubby is an only child. He never did much baby sitting and when he did, he hated it. I've got a younger brother and I feel that I've already raised a child before HB was even born. I mean I've done everything: diapering, bathing, clothing, feeding, playing with, teaching..etc. Watching my son decide to eat his cheerios without using his hands or a spoon isn't something new.

I try to be patient. It just seems so weird that Hubby is so uptight about this. But then I remind myself that a lot of new parents are uptight. They learn to relax more when they have more children. So I ignore my husband and encourage my child to be different and hope that my husband (as I'm sure a lot of new parents do) will learn to relax. And we'll see that in the end, I'm right. It's just a phase and he will outgrow it.

I also can remind him that he used to climb the kitchen table too. I have a picture to prove it. Special thanks to my MIL who at the time saw this as humorous, grabbed her camera, took a picture, and then deposited Hubby on the floor. Now if I could only get Hubby to get that it's cute and funny, I'd be a happier wife.

Grrrr

2011-10-03T23:09:00.000-07:00

don't you hate when that happens. You write something up. You go to add a picture and then poof, it's gone. The whole dang post. Oh, well.

Does anybody got any good nighttime diaper solutions they would like to share? It's becoming a huge frustration of mine. I guess I'll write the whole thing up later. I'm too tired and stinky.

Quantifying Human Value

2011-10-02T12:12:00.000-07:00

Here's a hypothetical scenario. There are twenty people lined up along a brick wall. A commander with a pistol stands next to you and asks you to pick out 10 people from the line up to be shot. The ages of these people vary from infancy to old age. Their races, gender, and religion vary. Some of these people were construction workers, teachers, convicts, military leaders, etc. You know a few of these people. Some because they are family; some were your neighbors. The rest you don't know. How do you decide which of the ten should the commander shoot?

I ask this question because Hubby and I got into a rather heated debate about the subject. Because ultimately it boils down to this, how do you quantify human life? Are those who are young worth more than those who are old? Is one race more worthy of life than another? Can a person's gender or religion make a difference in your decision? Does their occupation factor into the value of their life? What would you do for a person who is your family (say your own child) versus some stranger child? Do these things make a difference and should they?

I ask these questions because it's the difference between the Canadian justice system and the American justice system. In Canada, the years of imprisonment for murder is quantified by the years of life. In other words, an infant who is murdered shortly after birth carries a lighter sentence than someone who is murdered at the age of 30. In the United States, the age of the person doesn't matter. However, the value of the person's life is based loosely on their worth to someone else. In other words, people who murder the terminally ill receive lighter sentences than those who murder their healthy co-worker. It's a matter of quantifying human life.

Can we as pro-lifers quantify human life? Can we judge? Are we allowed to quantify human life and dignity or is all human life worthy of dignity? Yes, things like Euthanasia, infanticide, murder, and abortion all aren't debatable. But what about capital punishment and war? Are we allowed a litmus test for the deaths of those people?

You all know my thoughts on this subject. So I pose the idea to get you thinking about yours. The reason is because I'm afraid that not having some sort of moral objectivity can lead a person down a slippery slope. It's self-evident. Look at the number of abortions. If you ask a person who rides on the fence to seriously contemplate what their lack of action does, they will realize that they have made a choice to quantify human value. The same can be said of the Holocaust. There were thousands of people who knew what was happening, but chose to do nothing, look the other way, out of fear and apathy. "They are Jews. I'm a Catholic. What do I care? If I try, they will kill me and my family. I don't know any of these people." It's a bunch of excuses that ends with the deaths of millions.

Edmunde Burke said: "When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle."

So regardless of what the American or Canadian justice system does to quantify the value of human life. What would you do? How would you choose the ten?

Let me point you to

2011-10-01T22:04:00.000-07:00

this article. "A Plea for China from Capitol Hill" Here are the highlights.

U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden, when recently in China, failed to say anything of the sort, instead publicly assuring that he would not be “second-guessing” the policy. A spokesman would later assure Americans, at least, that he considers the policy “repugnant.”

Smith opened the hearing by addressing Biden’s comments and issuing an open invitation to him to address the committee about “what actions, if any, the Obama administration is taking to end this barbaric policy.”

This isn’t simply a war of words among American politicians. Despite the “repugnant” clarification, the Obama administration has restored U.N. Population Fund funding after a George W. Bush administration hiatus. The UNFPA has been a support to China’s brutal policy. Smith has introduced the China Democracy Promotion Act of 2011, which would allow the president to deny Chinese government officials entry into the United States if they have participated in human-rights abuses, including coercive enforcement of the one-child policy.

At the hearing, an exiled Chinese human-rights activist, Liu Ping, recalled her horrific experience working in a textile factory in Tianjin in the 1980s.

“There was a system of collective punishment: If one worker violated the rules, all would be punished,” Liu testified. “Workers monitored each other. Women of reproductive age accounted for 60% of my factory floor. Colleagues were suspicious and hostile to each other because of the one-child policy. Two of my pregnancies were reported by my colleagues to the Family Planning Commission. When discovered, pregnant women would be dragged to undergo forced abortions — there simply was no other choice.

“We had no dignity as potential child-bearers. By order of the factory’s Family Planning Commission, every month during their menstrual period, women had to undress in front of the birth-planning doctor for examination. If anyone skipped the examination, she would be forced to take a pregnancy test at the hospital. We were allowed to collect a salary only after it was confirmed that we were not pregnant.”

Please read the whole article. It's really terrifyingly eye-opening.

Say Cheese

2011-10-01T13:31:00.000-07:00

So I've taken some pictures of certain food products to let you know where this stuff is coming from.

Ordinarily I don't buy Bordens. Not cause I have a problem with them, but because my family was a Kraft family. I like their cheese. It tastes fine. It was on sale so I bought it. This is the wrapper.

My usual Kraft Cheese.

Back of Bordens label. Notice it says Made in America. Now what does this mean? Does it mean the milk and stuff came from America? Or does it mean it was processed in America? Since the wording is not clear, one has to assume at least at some point the cheese came from America. At least they disclose. Most food doesn't.

Case in point. Kraft. If you look at the label it tells you how to contact the company. This is the customer service in the US. It does not tell you where it was processed or where the stuff to make the cheese came from. It misleads consumers into thinking that the cheese is US made, but the reality is unless Kraft tell you, you don't really know. Although I didn't take pictures of the entire wrap, I assure you it did not indicate where it was made.Verdict: I think I'll buy more Bordens cheese.

The Art of Compliments

2011-09-29T23:07:00.000-07:00

Stuff of Yesterday
So briefly, had cramps the day before yesterday. Figured if things got worse I would do something. And if things stayed the same I would call the mid-wife. Woke up and still had cramps. She suggested getting monitored, which basically meant me being hooked up to machines for an hour (during lunch I was so hungry) and then being poked and prodded to determine all was well. They determined it was growing pains. She suggested that I take it easy. Toddler wrangling is no easy feat which is basically what she said. So pouty me has to give stuff up. This is the part I hate about 3rd trimester stuff. The spirit is willing; the flesh is weak. So what am I giving up? Well, I'm quitting library baby story time. *gasp heard from Catholic librarian*. Yes, I'm giving it up. They leave the double doors open, and I had to on Tuesday retrieve HB from the very close to the room computer catalog three times. It's not fun dealing with kicking and thrashing multiple times (which could explain the pain). After that I closed the doors. He doesn't care for their story time. And frankly I don't either. It's not very engaging compared to the ones in Tucson. He'd rather type on their computers. So I'm giving it up. And Hubby has announced that he's taking over the laundry and the grocery shopping, but he assures me that he will find another way to let me leave the house. The laundry is a pain because I wheel three to four loads every week on HB's wagon to the laundry room and throw it all in at once. I was expecting to give that up. I wasn't expecting to be relinquished of my one regular trip out of the house sans child, but now that I have the SHE (Catholic Moms group) every Wednesday evening, I suppose I can give up the trips to the store. *sigh* I know I'll get over it. It's only temporary for a few more months.

The Art of Compliments
I've mentioned that I've read the whole Five Love Languages thing and determined that it's very hard for me to pick a love language. The closest to being first is "Words of Affirmation" which encompasses compliments but also simply telling a person that you love them and care about them. My husband doesn't "do" compliments. It's a completely foreign concept to him. Just as it a completely foreign concept to me that a fully grown man needs a hug from time to time. But we all get over it and try anyway. I understand that to hug a person is to show you love them and so it's for them not for your own selfishness.

Hubby, for a long while, has viewed compliments as something you give a person when they achieve something. But then he had an "ah ha" moment one night while during our usual discourse about why he needs to point out the good points about me, when I explained the part about doing it for the person to show that you love them. Not all compliments are devoid of achievement, but not all compliments have to be about achieving something. Compliments come in many different forms.

1) Beauty- While I'm not into the "lookin' good" compliments, they are one way of affirming a person in your eyes. Some women (and men) need to feel attractive to their spouse. I'm not one of them.
2) Achievement- A "job well-done" compliment or it can be simply "thank you for doing blah"
3) Mid-way doing thing- The point of this compliment is to keep encouraging the person. "I see that you are making progress. Keep up the good work" or in the case of children "keep going. You can do it. I have confidence in you." It's more of "words of affirmation" but I consider it to be complimentary.
4) Simply being- saying that you appreciate the person being there in your life is also important. Usually this is followed by "I love you." This to me is the most important of the compliments because it both affirms the significance you hold in the person's life but also shows that their love for you is unconditional. Beauty fades and you may get addled as you age, but your status in their life shouldn't change.

I say all these things for Hubby's benefit (we've discussed them before but it's always nice to have something written down) and for those who have trouble with compliments. The other big problem is getting into the habit of complimenting. This can be for your spouse or your own children. If compliments are hard to do, then schedule it.

Hubby is a regimented person. He's more so than me which I find strange since being a musician requires some amount of self-discipline. Hubby likes working in a frame work of schedules. If things go outside that, he stresses. The man even uses a kitchen timer to make sure he's brushed his teeth the recommended two minutes. So when I say that I'm flexible, I don't mean in that I'm constantly spontaneous. I mean that if something comes up in the middle of brushing my teeth I don't groan about it. Hubby has a hard time changing.

So this evening during yet another episode of "you really need to stop the criticisms and start the compliments or I'm going to start hurling this pot that I'm washing at your head" discussions, I told him to start scheduling the compliments. His biggest problem, so he says, is that he doesn't think about it because it's not habitual. So I told him, if you can remember to brush your teeth twice a day, the least you can do is remember to pay me a compliment at a certain point in your day. So he's agreed. We'll see how that goes.

Last week, I told him to start small. He can use the most common compliments ascribed to children: you're beautiful and you're smart. It's a start. He doesn't have to suddenly spout off sonnets. He just has to get out of his head and start with a baby step. This evening I asked him about what happened to the baby steps and he said something about it being bad timing when he thinks of these things and that he really wanted to come up with something better. To which, I told him "but you have to start somewhere. If you keep trying to go into 'perfection mode,' you'll frustrate yourself to the point that you'll give up before trying, which is what you are doing now. Stick to the plan." So he's agreed.

So here's the plan, for those of you who struggle with compliments (*clears throat* Hubby). Make it a habit by scheduling it like when you eat breakfast in the morning or leave for work. If you can remember to kiss your sweetie goodbye, you can remember to tell her she looks fabulous. And start small. It may seem dumb at first to say "you look beautiful" or "I think you're smart" but start somewhere. If you've had these discussions with your wife for a long time (something like going on five years now), they will not be expecting something out of a romance novel. They just need something. Otherwise that "love tank" looks really dry. If it's your child, depending on their age, you can tell them your plan to work on it (which they are more than willing to help and be flexible about) or you can start off small. Sometimes the only things I say to HB are "you're so smart" or to simply clap and say "good job." He doesn't care that it's not elaborate.

So tomorrow, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that my regimented man (who if it's not part of the routine tends to forget things) will remember to say something along those lines. Otherwise, I know of several pans that may go flying. ;P

2011-09-28T14:42:00.001-07:00

I'm fine. Tired and Hungry, but fine. As I said, it was nothing. They think it's just growing pains and nothing else. I'm going to go eat and take a nap.