32.5 and counting

 This in not my current belly!  It's Rosie in there, at about 38.5 weeks.  (I'm nowhere near this big yet, at the moment.)

"When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced.  Live your life in such a manner that when you die the world cries and you rejoice." 
~Indian Saying

I start to focus inwardly at about this time during pregnancy.  Externals fade into the background and what's going on inside seems a lot more real than what's going on outside of me.  (You know, homes being bought and sold, landlords trying to screw us, 3,000 square feet of packing, trading in mountain canyons for tidy square lawns....)

 I thought we were nuts just a few months ago, planning a pregnancy that would mean giving birth just weeks after a major move.  Some moments I still do.  But I also realize, as always, life's insane timing is a blessing in disguise. 

"There is no other organ quite like the uterus.  If men had such an organ they would brag about it.  So should we." 
~Ina May Gaskin

My stress tolerance is quite low.  Usually I would be a mess, a total mess, with all the logistical and financial stress we're going through right now.  But instead, I have this perfect, peaceful retreat right under my heart, where I can escape every day.  It seems easier with every pregnancy to feel the baby's... soul? spirit? personality? in utero.  And the last couple of months of pregnancy I feel like I really live in 2 worlds.  The regular day to day world, and the secret, dark world inside, where only myself and my baby exist.

(Doesn't she look big and healthy?  9 lb 6 oz!)

"Babies are bits of star-dust blown from the hand of God.  Lucky the woman who knows the pangs of birth for she has held a star." 
~Larry Barretto

My last birth was nearly perfect.  And, honestly, it was painless.  However, I attribute that equally to mental prepredness, perfect baby positioning, and really, really, REALLY high pain tolerance.  (I can't handle a lot of stress, but I can handle pain.  That's the lasting benefit of surviving a major car crash and extensive bone surgery, I guess.)

"There's time enough, but none to spare." 

~Charles W. Chesnutt

Attended homebirth is illegal in Nebraska.  This means we have to choose between an unattended birth in a hostile environment (i.e. in case of transfer/ emergency/ complication), with a lot of difficulty surrounding aquisition of a birth certificate, blood typing for Rh factor, and so on, and giving birth in a clinical setting.

(My what big hands you have!)

"Women's bodies have near-perfect knowledge of childbirth; it's when their brains get involved that things can go wrong." 
~Peggy Vincent

 I realize that to families who have never experienced homebirth, it can be quite mystifying why it is SO important to some of us.  But all I can say is, once you have experienced a homebirth...

 things will never be the same.

"Life happens too fast for you ever to think about it.  If you could just persuade people of this, but they insist on amassing information. "

~Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Birthing at home is safe.  Statistically, babies fare the same and mothers fare better, both physically and psychologically, compared to hospital births.  (WHO statistics.)

 Luckily, we found the almost brand-new birth center in Omaha to be fantastic.  The midwife is about as excellent as one could hope, and she herself wishes she could attend homebirths, as is passionately pursuing legislature that will allow her to in the future. 

"Birth is not only about making babies.  Birth is about making mothers... strong, competent, capable mothers who trust themselves and know their inner strength." 
~Barbara Katz Rothman

(In fact, her assistant midwife was a homebirth midwife for 20 years before she was threatened out of business.)  In other words, they get it.

 So now it's only a question of whether we can actually make it the 30 minutes there before baby just *pop* arrives. 

"$13 to $20 billion a year could be saved in health care costs by demedicalizing childbirth, developing midwifery, and encouraging breastfeeding." 
~Frank A. Oski

(My recurrent dream is waking up in the middle of the night, realizing I'm in labor, and before I can even get out of bed, FER (fetal ejection reflex) takes over and baby just slides out.  And no kidding, John Paul was almost like that!)

(First nap, 12 hours old.  Isaiah stayed up till 2 am to watch Rosie's birth.)

"I brought children into this dark world because it needed the light that only a child can bring."

  ~Liz Armbruster

Anyway, between packing and laying around with my babies, all 4 of them, blogging isn't really at the top of my to-do list these days!   

(A little bit of heaven.)

"Children make you want to start life over." 
~Muhammad Ali

I've got ice cream, vaccines, birth preparation, unplugged travel, and a number of other ideas on my blogging docket, and we'll see how many of them materialize here over the next few weeks and we head from the mountains of northern New Mexico, to the Sonoran Desert of southern Arizona, through our home on the Kansas range, and on to our new home in Nebraska.

Our Lady of the Way, pray for us.

"There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval." 
~George Santayana, "War Shrines," Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies, 1922

The Black Widow Effect

When you've never seen a black widow, sometimes you see a spider and think, "Is that a black widow?"

In which case, I guarantee you, it is not a black widow!

Because once you've seen this:

You never have that thought again.  You just look and know, that is a black widow, or, nope, not even close.

Well, this pregnancy, I keep checking my baby, thinking, "Is she breech?"

And I know if I have to ask is  she breech, that she's not breech.  Till today, when I woke up on my left side, looked down at my belly and went, "Expletive, expletive, THAT is a breech baby."

Sigh.  I knew things were going too well.  I'm also sure the extremely stressful weekend I just had contributed.  First, we sold our house.  Of course, we sold it for a lot, a LOT, A LOT  less than we wanted.  And then we found out we won't get a trip to Omaha (Oh, I can finally tell you now that we are moving to Omaha, because Ed finally signed his contract) to house hunt, (which is fine, I guess, since we wouldn't be able to spend as much on a house as we were expecting, having sold our Kansas house for peanuts,)  then I spent a couple hours looking at rentals on the internet and finding pretty much nada.  Then we hosted a childbirth class, after which I let 2 doulas palpate my belly.  One went really deep causing baby and me to JUMP, and causing a uterine spasm (which I hid because I didn't want her to feel bad).  Then we went swimming and I strained a muscle in my hip.  And the next day, yesterday, I spent 8 hours packing and dragging heavy boxes. 

And I flipped out at my husband over a doughnut fiasco.

So somewhere in there, amidst the stress  and strain, this baby got uncomfortable and turned around.  (Today, baby is hiccuping and moving in a weird way she's never done before.)

Today I have spent the morning doing excercises and greedily (re)reading the Spinning Babies website.  And crying.

And now I think I will resume both activities.


"Life is tough enough without having someone kick you from the inside." 
~Rita Rudner

The Almighty Formula

Once, as a very new homeschooler, I attended a homeschool support group meeting and asked “a question” about math books. O boy, was I in for a shock.

I had about a dozen veteran homeschooling mothers- lovely, kind, generous moms whom I absolutely adore- jump down my throat and give me 12 different answers to my question. And after the meeting, several more gave me their “solutions”. “Do it *this way* and life will be great.”

Now none of those moms meant to overwhelm me. Or tell me what to do. But they were making what I consider to be THE fundamental mistake of homeschooling.

Calling on the Almighty Formula.

Everybody does it. Summer is the worst- your mailbox is flooded with a million (ok, maybe more like a trillion) glossy catalogs claiming to have the Almighty Formula for you. Right here, direct from God, all your answers in this box. Or look! Over here you can pick and choose from a wide selection of components and create your own Almighty Formula!

But let me share with you a little metaphor. Do you know the main difference between formula feeding and breastfeeding? Well, experts get together to create formula. They determine what a general human baby needs to *not die* and they try to cover all unknown factors (impossible), then they pour it in a can, slap a label on it, charge you exorbitant amounts of money for it, and you take it home. You mix it exactly the same every time and give it to your baby. But when you breastfeed your baby, what happens? Your body, and your baby’s body, communicate. Your body reads your baby and adjusts the components of your milk *every day*. And even hour to hour. Someone coughs on you, and your breasts know immediately that germ x is in the air, and automatically begins to manufacture the necessary antibodies. Human milk is alive.

Wow. What a difference. To me, a curriculum is the formula. Someone else made it. Someone else determined what “children”, in general, needed, and now they are trying to sell it to me. Not that curricula are all bad.

After all, there are cases where formula saves the lives of babies whose moms have died, or are physiologically unable to make milk, or choose for personal reasons not to nurse their babies. Thank God for modern technology, and I mean that. Feeding my kids a curriculum won’t kill them. Some children and their parents enjoy curricula, and if it works for that family, great! BUT-

But. But I trade a living relationship for a static one. (And please note I refer here to the actual milk, not the parenting aspect of my previous metaphor!) I trade the thrill of exploration and reciprocation for the (false) security of scope and sequence.

And if I may stretch some more metaphors- what if you read about some wonder food (on my blog probably- LOL) and it sounded awesome, just what your child needed. So you ran out and bought him a 9-month supply. But after a month you notice he has developed a terrible allergic reaction. Do you force-feed him the rest just because you paid for it and you don’t want to be wasteful? Or because you know it’s a good food, full of vitamin C, and your child is definitely vitamin C deficient, and maybe the reaction is a fluke? Or it will go away eventually?

Of course not. Er, I hope not.

When we look around at God’s creation, so much of it is self-regulating. Yet we feel the need to control. We think so much depends on us, when really it all depends on God. I would never tell another homeschooler what to do, how to do it, or how to solve her problems. But I would hope to empower her to find her own solutions. To encourage her that no expert knows her child better than she. That education happens everywhere, not just at the table, not just in books. That her child’s needs might not fit the scope and sequence charts, and that’s ok.

That’s the beauty and freedom you have, as a home educator.

“Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.”
-William Butler Yeats

(This was originally written as an article for a homeschooling website. The site decided it was too controversial to publish there. PLEASE NOTE that I do NOT intend this article as a criticism of formula-feeding mothers, or mothers who choose a preset curriculum. It is an opinion and all are free to take it with a grain of salt. Or a dozen. I am always interested in hearing your reactions to what I've written.)

"You can please some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time but you can't please all of the people all of the time."
-Abe Lincoln or Mark Twain- who knows!

Sleep: A Rehearsal for Death

It shouldn't be a foreign concept. Christians everywhere are taught as little children to say an Act of Contrition before they go to bed. The traditional prayer originally read:

Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
If I should die before I wake,
I pray Thee, Lord, my sould to take.

In our modern times the prayer has been cleaned up to avoid the mention of death.

It's a shame.

In fact, nothing so mimics or prepares or rehearses us for death like going to sleep. Little children know this. I think they feel better when we acknowledge it.

It's why they don't want you to leave. It's why they want another drink of water, another story, another prayer, another back rub.

Puh-leeeez. I can hear you think, you know!

I have a major advantage over most adults I know. I have acute memories of childhood. I know exactly what many things feel like to a child because I've never forgotten. To be hurt monstrously over miniscule things.

The intense joy of finding a doll you left under a tree in the park yesterday that you were sure would be gone the next day. To be not afraid but actually terrified of the dark.

Going to sleep is a little letting go of consciousness. Death is the ultimate letting go of consciousness. We reasonable adults understand this difference, but little people feel everything so intensely, they are so consumed by the present moment, every small ending seems so final. And by golly, most kids want to squeeze EVERYTHING out of TODAY.

Ah, how we should envy them.

Many, not all, but especially the very sensitive ones, the deep thinkers, they get frightened sometimes of letting go.

Oh, you can brush off my words, you can, but if you've got a child who resists bedtime every night, you still might consider my suggestions.

I suggest that children, all children, should be gentled to sleep. Not put to sleep or sent to sleep, but loved to sleep. And they should feel safe at night, in the dark. Because somehow, God seems closer to all of us in the dark hours of the day, if only we're noticing. And we want to give children the experience of a God Who is Love.

"Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
-Dylan Thomas

"So runs my dream: but what am I?
An infant crying in the night:
An infant crying for the light:
And with no language but a cry."
-Alfred Lord Tennyson

I always get these poems running through my head when I hear mothers talking about letting their babies cry it out, or locking their toddlers in their rooms. And I always think of the Beatitutde- blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted, and comfort the sorrowful (spiritual works of mercy). And I remember that all too soon there will come a day when I will wake in the night and hear...

Nothing.

And I will ache for the days- and nights- gone by.

"Sleep, baby, sleep!
Thy father guards the sheep,
Thy mother shakes the dreamland tree,
And from it fall sweet dreams for thee;
Sleep, baby, sleep!
Sleep, baby, sleep!

Sleep, baby, sleep!
The large stars are the sheep,
The little ones the lambs, I guess,
The gentle moon the shepherdess,
Sleep, baby, sleep!
Sleep, baby, sleep!

Sleep, baby, sleep!
Our Savior loves His sheep,
He is the Lamb of God on high,
Who for our sakes came down to die,
Sleep, baby, sleep!
Sleep, baby, sleep!"

-German lullaby

Ritual for a Mother

Rituals- toothbrushing and facewashing before bed, coffee and the paper at 6am- soothe the body and nurture the spirit. But the ritual of prayer, it does something even deeper.

It feeds the Soul.

Everyone has rituals. Even the people who claim they hate ritual.

Everyone needs rituals.

I used to be the maven of the bedtime ritual around here, but since moving here, myhusband has taken over. A big benefit of his new job is thathe is here, every night. Without exception.

So John Paul and I have a magical hour to ourselves, while Dad gentles Brother and Sister off to dreamland. After his bath, John gets tucked into his second-hand jogging stroller with a warm blanket (the nights here are already growing chilly), and off we trot.

I have a Rosary swinging from one hand as we glide down the hill to the park. A park here isn't much more than a patch of grass with a track around it, a far cry form the acre-after-acre-parks of our hometown, but it's all I need tonight. There are no park lights or street lights around here: when night falls, night falls.

And being in the mountains, the earth is dark while the sky is still bright. Prayer is effortless under the circumstances.

With every step the cares of the day peel away from my soul, a little bit more and a little bit more. The darkness feels like a pool where I come and wash my spirit.

The love of the Triune God is burning there, here, within, waiting. And when the words of the prayers open me, and I connect with that furnace, the past and the future are burned away leaving only the present moment. Flooded with Grace.

John Paul never lets me get too lost in my prayers, as he eventually points up the hill and cries, "Home! Night-night!"

And so we go.

Generally speaking, I don't 'find' time for prayer. But a priest told me once, you must avoid occasions of sin; you must create occasions of grace. Just as I order the environment for my children towards joyful learning, I strive to order my own environment towards prayer. We have little rituals- prayer before meals and each time we get into the car. In fact, I used to use my driving time as my Rosary time at times when home was so busy and so hectic, I'd fall into bed exhausted and realize I'd barely nodded at my God all day. Unfortunately, there just isn't anywhere far enough away from you in a small town to get much prayer done on a car ride!

This half an hour tryst with my stroller is my own answer to a mother's busy life, for now at least.

"The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread."
-Mother Teresa

"Pray, hope, and don't worry. Worry is useless. God is merciful and will hear your prayer."
-Padre Pio